Category Archives: Blog

The new Build Ring

As you can see you will simply have a ring around the field where you clicked to build something and it will show the available building choices. Everything in place!

new_buildring

And yes, we had to redesign the icons of the resources. Because a knuckle of pork can’t seriously be representing food in general, not in a serious game ;D! So we took this abstract version of a vegetable as the major icon for greenhouses, farms, cattle breeding, fishing or fountains. The diamond as the icon of goods was as well misunderstood as luxury goods while it ment commodity and consumer goods of the every day life. At last we decided to put them into these red delivery boxes where anything like that can be packed in.

shopping mall

To expose the function of at least some of the buildings in that ring: These facilities will fit into the building-logic of your cities. the financial district will of course squeeze more money out of surrounding parts and the campus district will advance them while shopping malls and park districts will simply raise the life quality in residential districts.

buildring_scribble

An early scribble for the next build ring with the first comming up of icons representing the buildings.
Please give us feedback in the comments section below or at our facebook site.

Water Shader and Pollution

A little update from the development, (expect these to come more regularly from now on). We reworked the water shader and now you can see crystal clear turquoise wobbling ocean water and you will have many ways of polluting it with oil slicks, chemicals, pesticides and even nuclear radiation because your dilapidated industrial buildings can now have accidents you will have to cleanup!..

whater_shader-pollution_render

Energy from floating algae pods

This could be one the sustainable energy plants in our game. Seems to me more interesting than Wavecraft at the moment ;D ! Call it “fuel without fossils”: Jonathan Trent is working on a plan to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities. Hear his team’s bold vision for Project OMEGA (Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae) and how it might power the future.

Not only does Jonathan Trent grow algae for biofuel, he wants to do so by cleansing wastewater and trapping carbon dioxide in the process. And it’s all solar-powered. TED

Global Warming’s Terrifying Numbers

These days many people think keeping global warming under 2 degree would be okay to protect us from the worst climate change effects. In his article in the “Rolling Stone” Bill McKibben cites figures that the ready-or-planned-to-burn fossils of oil and gas companies are five times that much in gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions allready. Futhermore he quotes scientists saying that 2 degree Celsius is itself just a rotten political compromise and that and that allready 1 degree would barely mark the deadline of a climate balance (with having reached 0.8 allready). And he quotes Naomi Klein about “the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It’s what they do.” but read it yourself, please!

Great Level Up contest news

On Wednesday evening, the Intel® Level Up Game Demo Contest awarded winners of its yearly competition for professional and student game developers at the E3 edition of Video Games Live. The winning game demos are available for free download at the Steam store and developer teams will have the opportunity to turn their demo into a fully playable title distributed by Valve.

We want to invite you play our demo and give us your feedback and your ideas about gameplay, story and look! Thanks a lot! http://store.steampowered.com/app/213450/

German version

Das Computerspielprojekt “Imagine Earth” der Braunschweiger Jochen Isensee und Martin Wahnschaffe ist mit dem Intel® Level Up Award in der Kategorie “beste Simulation” ausgezeichnet worden. Jochen Isensee hat an der HBK freie Kunst und Kommunikationsdesign studiert. In diesem Echtzeit Simulationsspiel muss der Spieler die Expansion einer planetaren Zivilisation koordinieren, misslingt ihm dies droht ein globaler Klimakollaps mit allen Konsequenzen.

Am Mittwoch den 6.6.2012 hat der Intel® Level Up Demo Contest die Gewinner des jährlichen Wettbewerbs für professionelle und studentische Indie Game Entwickler prämiert. Die Prämierung fand im Vorfeld der weltgrößten Computer- und Videospielmesse E3 in Los Angeles statt. Die Gewinnerdemos der acht verschiedenen Genre Kategorien wurden im Rahmen des philharmonischen “Video Games Live” Konzerts in einer interaktiven Ausstellung in der Lobby des Nokia Theatres gezeigt. Die Demos der verschiedenen Spielprojekte sind nun im the Steam Store frei herunterladbar und die vollendeten Spieltitel werden ebenfalls dort von Valve vertrieben, was man als einen Plattenvertrag für Indie Developer bezeichnen kann.

offizieller Trailer auf Youtube

Demopage on Levelup Site
http://software.intel.com/sites/campaigns/levelup2011/hall-of-glory/index.html

offizielle Website des Projekts

Home

facebook-Seite des Pojekts
http://facebook.com/ImagineEarth

Peak of Coal approaching?

Although coal is plentiful, we may see the end of cheap coal within a few decades, according to a report published in Nature. The researchers urge a reevaluation of the economic viability of clean coal technologies.

Coal Current predictions of continuing low prices do not reflect revised estimates of easily mined supplies, said Richard Heinberg and David Fridley, both fellows with the Post-Carbon Institute.

Over the past 20 years, estimates of coal supplies have fallen further than the amount of coal consumed would explain, partly because nations such as Germany and South Africa have reduced their estimates of economically recoverable coal. via discovery.com

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Auch wenn es scheinbar noch ordentlich Kohle gibt, ist einem Bericht von Nature zu Folge, ein Ende der billigen Kohle innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte absehbar. Forscher fordern deshalb eine Neubewertung der Wirtschaftlichkeit von Technologien für saubere Kohle. Aktuelle Vorhersagen über anhaltend niedrige Kohlepreise spiegeln nicht die zurückgeschraubten Schätzungen über leicht abbaubare Vorkommen wieder. In den vergangenen 20 Jahren sind die Schätzungen über Versorgung mit Kohle stärker gefallen, als der Verbrauch erklären würde, teils auch weil Staaten wie Deutschland und Südafrika ihre Schätzungen der wirtschaftlich förderbaren Kohle reduziert haben… Schätzungen über die weitere Verfügbarkeit dieser Energierescoure belaufen sich auf 20 – 200 Jahre. Wir haben passend zu dieser Nachricht kürzlich beschlossen, die Verfügbarkeit endlicher fossiler Resourcen auf den Planeten in Imagine Earth auf einem globalen Infopanel darzustellen, so dass dem Spieler die Tatsache ausgehender fossiler Brennstoffe nicht entgehen kann. zudem soll die Energieerzeugung mit diesen Rohstoffen linear ansteigen um die steigenden Förderkosten wiederzuspiegeln. was diese Rohstoffe zunehmend unantraktiv macht. via discovery.com