Genre
Tellus: Save the Earth is a serious resource management game.
High Concept
Tellus is a game that challenges players to improve the global quality of life through the development of a sustainable global society.
Overview
The gameplay focuses on five areas of development: energy, production (food & industry), public health, environmental awareness, and earth observation. Each of these areas is represented by a "tech tree" that allows players to explore different technologies and policies.
The earth is divided into multiple regions, and each region has a number of cities representing the population of the region, and a handful of nodes upon which various power plants, factories & farms, etc. may be constructed.
The game starts in the year 2010 with each region's tech tree and infrastructure modeled on what it is in th real world. Play progresses through a span of 40 years at a rate of one year per minute (though the game may be paused at any time.) This pace affords players the opportunity to complete a game in about an hour, inviting replay to try out different strategies. Ending the game by 2050 avoids the pitfalls inherent in forecasting too far in the future (few people alive 40 years ago were able to predict much of what the current world looks like, and the rate of change is accelerating.)
A principle goal of this project is to produce a video game that raises awareness about and teaches the importance of using earth observation systems and data to solve real world problems. The basic message is that policy decisions should be based on facts. The primary win-condition of the game is to raise the quality of life for all of Earth’s population, which is very closely tied to the well being of the Earth itself.
The game is being created with Unity3D.
Target Audience
Tellus is primarily aimed at children ages 9-18. It is intended that the game will be localized for multiple regions in order to reach an international audience.
Target Hardware
PCs running Windows Vista, Windows 7
Macs running OS X and later
May be run in a browser.
Future plans include iPad and other tablet computers.
While you're at it, please check out our friends!
Articles
Fifteen weeks have passed and the team has made good progress. The Alpha 5 Build includes new aquaculture options that offer some great alternatives for food production and allow water nodes to be used for something other than energy production. Coming soon: more uses for water nodes!
We've also addressed a number of bugs. We're very happy to have had another group of students join the team as official QA testers, so you can expect a steady improvement in the stability and overall quality of the game as development continues. And continue it will! This summer semester we have set some ambitious goals for ourselves:
- More improvements to the GUI - cleaner, slicker, and most importantly, more informative
- (Filterable) event log so that you can review the messages you may have missed
- Research timers so that investing in new technology won't produce instantaneous results
- Completely revised Earth Observation tech tree based on the information we get from EO scientists
- Better game endings (with more information about how you did)
- More music and sound effects
- More player preferences settings for gameplay, audio, etc.
- And, hopefully, several more features and enhancements that address the many suggestions that we've received
Thank you for your continued interest and support,
The Tellus Team
Tellus Wins IEEE Competition, Alpha Available!
NewsTellus is the winner of the 2nd (and final phase) of the SaveEarthGame competition!
Tellus is in alpha, playable demo for IndieDB
News 7 commentsTellus is now in alpha! As a reward to IndieDB and their community, we will be releasing the alpha to members of this site. This alpha release is the...
Tellus: Save the Earth. What is it?
Feature 3 commentsProject Tellus is being created by several students attending the University of Advancing Technology [UAT] in Tempe, Arizona USA. The game employs Earth...
Files
Tellus 1.4.0 Pre-Build
DemoAdded saving, difficulty, and menu improvements. There was also changes made to the tutorial.
Tellus Alpha 5
DemoNew Features: New water based factories and farms Bug Fixes: Fixed water node being land nodes after demolition finishes. Fixed text issues with demolishing...
Tellus Alpha 4 GUI Patch
PatchThis patch added a new system to our GUI to make it more light weight and more appealing. Many more updates to the GUI are planned int he future, and...
Tellus Alpha 4
DemoThe fourth version of the Tellus Alpha has been released. This build addresses many bugs, and add much more to the game. The notable improvements are...
Tellus Alpha Version 3 GUI Update
PatchThis is the latest version of Tellus, in its third alpha. This update fixes some GUI issues, as well as some scaling issues.
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I would just like to keep everyone up to date on what's going on with Tellus.
We are currently working on re-structuring our GUI to make it more user friendly and light weight. We would like everyone's input on how the changes are coming with the next few updates.
We love player feedback, and we will review all feedback that we are given.
Enjoy the game!
-Donny, Programmer for Tellus.
A huge GUI fix to Tellus Alpha 4 has just been submitted for download. Once it is approved, you will see that our region tech research GUI has a much nicer feel.
Many more editions to the GUI are planned. Most will be focused on making the GUI smaller, and more light weight.
Enjoy!
- Donny, Programmer for Tellus.
The fourth version of the Tellus Alpha has been released. This build addresses many bugs, and add much more to the game. The notable improvements are listed below.
*Fixed Many GUI bugs.
*In game bug reports are functional once again.
*Fixes to the tutorial.
*The Main menu update alerter is functional again. This will notify you if an update is available.
*region Resources have been implemented.
*Prices have been adjusted.
*Income bugs have been fixed.
*The overlay on research has been changed. This will be fully visible in the next patch build.
*New art in many areas.
Enjoy Tellus!
-Donny, Programmer for Tellus
Our website (www.playtell.us) has been updated with a newer build today. This build addresses many GUI issues, and scaling bugs. The game should also run fine now in 1920x1080 resolution, and anything under.
Expect a list of known bugs to be posted on our IndieDB forum within the next 24 hours, as well as many new screenshots of the game.
I would also like to remind everyone who finds a bug, that it is important that you report it to our bug forum. We really would appreciate the help!
Enjoy the game!
-Donny, Programmer for Tellus
really enjoyed the game...very interesting idea :-)
I was wondering if you were considering adding a 'food level' component. I only say so because in my game i completely ignored food technology and just industrialised the whole world without any negative effects as far as I could tell..
Great question.
We are currently implementing a system that gives specific "stats" to certain regions. These stats can include food, population, fossil fuels, and a wide array of other things. They can also have sub classes, such as the amount of a specific food type, or the male to female ratio of a region.
These "stats" are affected by a large array of variables within the region. They can be changed by anything from the time of year, to the amount of power plants, and everything else in between. They also are affected by the surrounding regions.
An example would be the population of a region going up, and the amount of food for that region going down as a result. This would cause the player to need to speed up food production.
So to answer your question, Yes we are. It's just still in the de-bugging stages. You can expect this to begin to show as we implement it within the upcoming few weeks.
Thank for playing! And I'm glad you enjoyed it!
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
-Donny, Programmer for Tellus
Just a quick note to let everyone know the latest build is available over on the Tellus website at www.playtell.us
There is now a fully functional tutorial! There are myriad other improvements and bug fixes. A fully detailed update is forthcoming.
The Tellus team has been awfully quiet for far too long, so I wanted to reassure everyone that development continues. As you might imagine, student projects that go on for more than a semester or two often struggle with team changes, and all of our original leads have left the project over the last 6-8 months. That's what happens when people graduate and get "real jobs!"
Fortunately, we have a terrific new team who have been diligently working on improvements in all areas of the game. In the near future you can look forward to a new build with several enhancements to the UI, some great new game mechanics, an actual working tutorial, and much more!
- David Wessman, Creative Director on Tellus
Do you know the resource based economy(RBE)? Maybe it could give you good ideas for your game.
Thanks for the suggestion about RBE, damiandj90. We have an admittedly curious economic model for the game, and this is something we are working on refining. Some other, more rational ideas about economics can be found in the works of R. Buckminster Fuller and Robert Anton Wilson. One of my favorite ideas is Wilson's The RICH Economy.