Balance of the Planet (1990)
Genres:Simulator
Themes:Educational
Story:Balance of the Planet is an environmental management simulation.
It is the successor to Balance of Power.
Chris Crawford seems to have a special liking for problems of global concern. Balance of Power dealt with politics in the cold war, its successor Balance of the Planet simulates nothing less than Earth's ecosystem. Although Maxis' Sim Earth is often credited as the first "ecosim", the title rightfully belongs to Crawford's game. Both games are equally interesting nevertheless, as they use two vastly different approaches to an enormously complex subject.
Sim Earth tries to simulate the natural processes, i.e. continental drift, weather, global temperature etc. as accurately as possible, and calculates the global impact from this basic conditions. Balance of the Planet breaks down the ecological system into 150 single factors, connected in a cause-and-effect network. Rather than experiencing the ecosystem as a whole, you discover a string of subjects that influence each other. For example, when dealing with global warming, you'd be referred to carbon dioxides and methane (the causes) and rising sea level (the result). By following and understanding the links, you may thus find out in which way beef production influences inundation. There is, however, no accurate simulation of a global ecology, rather than a sophisticated schematic of factors and problems.
Contrary to Sim Earth, you do not change the mechanisms of nature themselves. Instead, you're to try to influence society by funding and granting subsidies. If you raise the tax on coal considerably, coal burning and thus carbon dioxide output will be discouraged, but the strain on other forms of energy will increase. You'd be best advised to subsidise renewable energies -- which leaves less money for other pressing problems. Your job is to balance the ecology with the age-old system of reward and punishment. This has to be done in only nine turns; you are awarded or subtracted points, depending on your success.
Balance of the Planet is highly customisable. You may not only load "biased" games, in which you play with a certain prejudice (e.g. pro-nuclear), but also change all the formulas used for calculations to your liking.Show more
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StarLancerStarlancer is a space-based science fiction flight simulator computer game, created by Erin Roberts, Chris Roberts, and Warthog PLC under the auspices of Digital Anvil.
It is the year 2160. Mankind has colonized the solar system and two political entities have emerged: the Alliance consisting of American, Australian, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, British and German forces, and The Coalition of Russian, Chinese and Middle-Eastern interests. The game begins with a surprise attack on Fort Kennedy, where a peace treaty turns into a bloodbath: all of the inner four planets are overrun, including Terra herself, and the Italian and French fleets are utterly lost. The Alliance fleet regroups at Triton, Neptune's moon, and attempts to regain lost territory. The player takes the role of a rookie pilot in the international 45th Volunteers squadron, under the command of Captain Robert Foster and Wing Commander Maria Enriquez, aboard the re-commissioned British carrier ANS Reliant.
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