Online gamers share a server in order to (hopefully) improve their ranks on the leaderboards, but what happens when they play a game in which servers are treated like an ecosystem? This is what the recently announced Eco strives to find out.
Eco tasks players with nurturing the servers they occupy. Each new game begins a new civilization and, unfortunately, a looming ecological threat such as a meteor or drought. Teamwork is essential for preserving your ecosystem–that is, making sure you don’t deplete your resources without replenishing them–while preparing for the oncoming natural disaster. The disasters occur within weeks of beginning a new game, and it’s a race to see what will cause the end of a civilization: the natural disaster, or the inhabitants themselves?
Part of the strategy involves making players specialists, meaning everyone will be able to weigh in on how to preserve the resources. “Despite everyone occupying the same world and having the same interest in its survival, individual incentives will make for vastly different positions,” the said Strange Loop Games. “Is your character a lumberjack specialising in cutting down trees for their livelihood? You’re likely going to have a different idea as to how many trees should be allowed cut down than others. We’re all in this together, and yet the only enemy is ourselves, the individual’s needs vs the group’s.”
Because players are all in this together, they’ll have no time for trolling, which could be the biggest threat of all. Thankfully, Strange Loop Games have implemented a voting system to prevent the trolls from ruining the fun.
According to Eurogamer, Strange Loop Games received funding for Eco from the US government’s Institute of Education Sciences . The idea is to get students interested in learning about the ecosystem, and apparently the government was successful.
“The prototype functioned as intended,” the government stated. “Students found the game to be engaging, and students were able to collaborate with classmates during gameplay.”
The government tested the game on 60 students, and will test the final product on 150. Let’s hope the interest for this game continues to rise.
Source: Eurogamer