Genre

Tellus: Save the Earth is a serious resource management game.

High Concept

Tellus is a game that challenges players to improve the global quality of life through the development of a sustainable global society.

Overview

The gameplay focuses on five areas of development: energy, production (food & industry), public health, environmental awareness, and earth observation. Each of these areas is represented by a "tech tree" that allows players to explore different technologies and policies.

The earth is divided into multiple regions, and each region has a number of cities representing the population of the region, and a handful of nodes upon which various power plants, factories & farms, etc. may be constructed.

The game starts in the year 2010 with each region's tech tree and infrastructure modeled on what it is in th real world. Play progresses through a span of 40 years at a rate of one year per minute (though the game may be paused at any time.) This pace affords players the opportunity to complete a game in about an hour, inviting replay to try out different strategies. Ending the game by 2050 avoids the pitfalls inherent in forecasting too far in the future (few people alive 40 years ago were able to predict much of what the current world looks like, and the rate of change is accelerating.)

A principle goal of this project is to produce a video game that raises awareness about and teaches the importance of using earth observation systems and data to solve real world problems. The basic message is that policy decisions should be based on facts. The primary win-condition of the game is to raise the quality of life for all of Earth’s population, which is very closely tied to the well being of the Earth itself.

The game is being created with Unity3D.

Target Audience

Tellus is primarily aimed at children ages 9-18. It is intended that the game will be localized for multiple regions in order to reach an international audience.

Target Hardware

PCs running Windows Vista, Windows 7

Macs running OS X and later

May be run in a browser.

Future plans include iPad and other tablet computers.

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