EcoEEco
Mar 1

Circular / Regenerative Economy-based Gameplay

Instead of exploiting ressources exponentially to destroy a looming asteroid, starting with a barren / polluted planet and restoring life to the various biomes and ecosystems could be a very useful tool to teach eco-friendly alternatives to experiment and build climate-aware societies in the real world. I'm currently working for my company's climate-change transition team and I immediatly thought about this great society building simulator as a collaborative, team teaching tool; however, since I last played, a few years ago, it didn't seem to have any circular - regenerative economy options into it. For instance, - Having reusable byproducts from any crafting recipe; - Encouraging perma-culture techniques to boost soil fertility; - Allowing hunters to take care of animals and letting them graze on fields grass to also boost soil quality; - Adding a recycling tech path for pollution / scraps, to turn them into reusable raw / unique materials too. - Maybe adding poop to the game ? Burned calories do end up as a reusable byproduct for farming and energy making in the real world after all. - Making eco-friendly alternatives to early masonery-based building blocks In other words : - providing a full-fledged circular economy alternative to the current "extraction -> transform -> use -> dump" economy system - Ideally a best-suited starting scenario, like slowly restoring a barren / polluted / dying land back to life ? :) If those already exist within the game, we would love to learn more about them; otherwise, we'd love to see your take on it; y'all are probably the best suited team to pull off such an amazing teaching tool and social experiment :) Take care !
PendingPending
Mar 9, 2024

It's a nice idea, but imagine that only the video trailer would have to be distorted since Eco's asteroid is now something iconic in the game. I see it rather as a selectable alternative mode to the main one.

Mar 4, 2024

To the devs : Eco-friendly features might not resonate strongly with the user base as of now; as I am sure you all are well aware, we live in a world where we all grew within an "extract -> transform -> use -> dump" recital, our imaginaries and subsequent needs are carved onto it. Recycling, "trash", all of those things have a cultural negative co-notation that will reduce the amount of "users wants" on said subjects. However, the climate crisis ain't something we want neither, we do need teaching tools right now to reimagine and explore new collective imaginaries, help people / gamers project themselves progressively and actually want to adopt the required alternatives. Please be aware, y'all are probably the best suited team to provide such a tool within the consumer gaming / serious-games area. Meanwhile, from other people currently working on mitigating said crisis / fellow players looking for an eco-friendly society simulator, We'll do our best to help on our side, and we wish y'all the best :)

Mar 4, 2024

To other fellow players : Also, the feedback tracker allows comments; my initial post is rather high-level and I'm sure I missed some obvious feature examples. I'm not an expert, nor an agronome; hence, to flesh out my blind spots, your own wishes / expertises are overwhelmingly welcome ! :)