Our next project is called Eco, and it’s a game in a new genre I’m calling a Global Survival Game.
eco-video
What does that mean exactly? It means you play in a multiplayer world that has the possibility of being permanently destroyed, resulting in server-wide perma death. What’s more, the reason it’s destroyed would be the players’ own fault. It’s not that different from our own world in that way.
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It works like this: a new server is started, and players enter at the beginnings of civilization. There’s a world-destroying cataclysm looming, like a drought or a flood or a meteor heading for the Earth, several real-time weeks away. In order to prevent that catastrophe from happening, you need to build a civilization and advance technology and resources to the point that the crisis can be averted.
However you’re not alone in this world. Besides the other players, you’ll be sharing the world with a detailed wilderness simulation full of plants and animals. They simulate 24 hours a day, living out their lives with or without human interaction, growing, feeding and reproducing. Together they form an ecosystem rich with resources, resources that you must use to survive and develop a civilization.
aerial_view_progress2b
However, these resources are finite. Chop down every tree and fail to plant more? They won’t be growing back. Hunt every elk for food? They’re now extinct. Pollute a section of land with mining runoffs? Your crops are poisoned. This ecosystem is your only lifeline in a race against time, your source of resources that will either prevent humanity’s destruction, or become the source of its destruction when the group squanders its resources.
Thus you’re facing two existential crises simultaneously: an external threat that you must avert, and the threat of causing your own destruction. A rock and a hard place.
eco_kickstarter_env_effect_rough1
To solve this you’ll need to collaborate among a group of dozens of players (and eventually hundreds or thousands of people as we grow the game). You’ll need a strong economy that generates resources that can build the civilization, but that does so in a way that doesn’t destroy the ecosystem. You’ll need to make key decisions as a group as to the best approach to do that, and the game provides you a tool for that, a virtual government.
What other games like this do we have?
At least if the environment plays a heavy role, than it doesnt seem like a minecraft clone to me. Although it looks like one.
And what about that game where you are a god of a planet? That seems most similar to me.
It's Minecraft with a twist. Like we've seen a bunch of lately in Early Access (And no I have no love for any of these games).
The problem with these games is: the success is dependant on the population of the game. When developers oversaturate a genre like this you know what will happen. A huge hype, everyone buys and 3 to 6 months later: it's almost a ghost town (compared to the first days).
You see the same with: MMO's, MOBA's, Survival and these types of games. It doesn't make it easier that there are already established games out there. And people don't want to leave for something similar. It needs to be better in every way it can be.
Don't know actually, my mind is blocked by the thought of Black&White and other Molyneux games.
There was Spore (Kind of, probably because it's not made by Molyneux ), Godus, Populous...
This game is shaping surprisingly well.
Bought it last week spent almost 60 hours on it last week
Solo play is possible but still better with friends.
I played with my kids and while having fun they also learned some tips about ecology and hunting regulation.
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), Godus, Populous...
