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[ductape]

OK, this section is about "other games" i know, but i have this idea see, and I think I will put it out there to ya'll.

I have worked in the past on building an ecological simulator. Imagine a farm or homestead, you decide how to manage the land and so forth, the goal being to... simulate ecology.

I built the first and only iteration of this in Second Life a little over 2 years ago. It was kinda cool and simple. You had a house, solar panels and a wind turbine. There was weather that affected these. You could grow rows of corn, and watch it mature according to environmental factors. you controlled the irrigation. When it got to full size it would spawn little ears of corn that you could gather and drop in different baskets. The baskets were: ALCOHOL, MILL, PANTRY. The idea was to expand on that greatly of course, but the project fizzled. I still have all the stuff in Second Life, but I can't stand that hell-hole

Let me say, I am a professional Permaculture designer. I design integrated, sustainable systems for my city and clients. What has been going through my head for a while now is using some sort of engine to develop a tool for designing complex systems. Maybe it would be a tool, or maybe it could be an educational game.

I had thought to try using Blender, but I begin to realize we dont really need a 3d game, a roguelike would be fine too. Basically you want to be able to define elements like trees, plants, structures, bee hives, rivers, etc. and also define environmental factors. Then watch it play out, interact, watch plant communties ebb and flow, the possibilities boggle the mind. A sorta SimEarth cum SimFarm cum SimNeverBeenMadeBefore.

I have tons of knowledge, experience, and resources regarding the complexities of ecological environments. I also have a talent for graphics, design, websites, modeling. I have a basic grasp of code, but nowhere near the skill it would take to tackle something like this. Also have a serious work-ethic. I dont know if i am inviting a project, i dont know if there is something out there I could use. I dont know why i posted this either except I do know that the people who read this forum know a lot about a lot of things.

Thoughts?

[kcwong]

Usefulness of that as a tool depends greatly on how close to reality the simulation is. How does one simulate growth of plants and animals in a farm? (Statistical data?)

As a toy it depends on the entertainment value of it... for Sim-games, it depends on how many interesting things could happen, and those usually requires a huge deviation from reality. Like sentient robotic life in Sim-Earth, or all those unfortunate but hilarious accidents (or not) in Dwarf Fortress...