Idea Info Name: ECO: Voice of the Ecosystem Index: Primary Category: Educational Submitted: 1/3/2003 8:11:04 AM Written By: jamus_se

The Basic Idea:

Taking off from the other simulation series targeted at older audiences, Eco is a game designed for younger kids with the curiousity to explore how the world works together and why we as part of it should preserve it.

Exploring the World:

The game takes place in a cartoon version of planet earth.  The interface allows you to browse around the world with ease and see the various things that are happening.  It is what is happening that gets selective: only things that are directly affecting the ecosystem will be visible.

For example, you'll be able to see a factory dumping waste materials to the ocean and see fishes dying around it; you'll see some people recycling and some people chopping up trees and mining out natural resources.  You will see the food chain at work where animals hunt each other and how some humans may break that chain by over hunting some species.

Eco, a personified version of the ecosystem, will guide the player through out the game.  She will introduce the player to the various activities that are going on in the world, and how they might affect other parts of the world.  She will groan and complain when the ecosystem is out of balance, and she will sing and laugh when it is in balance.

Making a Difference:

Besides observing, the player also have the abilities to change the game world by telling the people in the game world on what to do.  There would be a specific mission mode where the player must solve a problem somewhere in the world.  For example, the aforementioned factories run into a conflict with the local fishermen.  Should the factories install more enviroment-friendly cleaning facilities?  Where is the money going to come from?  Maybe the fishermen should just go fish somewhere else.  But what about the beaches?  The player is free to make as much or as little influence on the outcome of these events.  In case that the player messes things up completely, Eco will do a time warp and give the player a second chance (as well as to give the player some pointers on what could or should be done).

Notice that the player is not omnipotent.  The player cannot order the fishes to go somewhere else.  The player cannot spawn trees out of nowhere.  Besides the time warp, they will face every consequence that comes out of their hands, and learn why they should care to recycle, to preserve animals, to moderate pollution, and other such issues that will, in reality, affect us more than academic subjects like literature and math.