As of November 2015 I can not keep going on with the project due to professional duties. Here you can find the source code. See you in next project!

Terraformer is a project to build a free ecosystem simulation videogame.

Educational simulators tends to focus in the theoretical model and forget the user experience. The aim of Terraformer is to build a simple but visually appealing videogame to give students a real experience of the simulation.

In Terraformer you can

Explore ecosystems in a videogame interface

Analyze local species competing among them

Introduce genetically modified invasive species to compete with local population

Observe evolution of species based on natural selection

Log data to analyze ecosystem dynamics

Take a look at the screenshots or at those videos of the development version

Help needed to add learning missions

At present, Terraformer is just a simulation engine. To have any educational value, learning missions should be added to the gameplay.

I’m looking for teacher’s help on this, as my background is mainly technological. If you are interested in the project, feel free to contact me.

If you are interested on the development side, code is uploaded to GitHub. I plan to release it under GPL license.

Next steps

Terraformer is a craft-made project, progressing in my spare time and it moves at its own pace. Depending on available time and help, next steps are

Add missions

Polish UI and gameplay

Add more traits in the genetic model

Improve visual appearance of creatures to reflect genus differences

Improve creatures engine to allow discovering of emergent behaviours

Ricard