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Game Needed for Ocean Conservation

Started by Ocean Legacy Sep 19, 2007 at 8:22 AM 13 replies 3.7k views

Original Post

Sep 19, 2007 at 8:22 AM

Dear game development experts, I work with a U.S. nonprofit group to protect and restore fisheries and ocean life. We recently came across a great game (http://www.whalesrevenge.com/) which we all love and that has generated more than 300,000 comments against commercial whaling. We’d like to create a similar game for our website www.oceanlegacy.org, focused on an overfishing, to generate thousands of comments for historic upcoming National Marine Fisheries Service rulemaking. We’d direct traffic to the game through our Myspace and Youtube pages and our professional networks around the country. For the action component, we’d link it to our existing GetActive/Convio hosted online petition. Such a game would help us immensely in our work and I think it can make a difference in ocean conservation. It would also be a bit of a pioneering venture. I did a careful web search and outside of the whale game, none of the other large nonprofits I searched had a game linked to a petition. If successful, this may become an important tool in advocacy. Computer science professors I know and their graduate students suggested I contact this site to see if someone would be able to create such a game for us for free. We would be sure to credit and promote the designer or design firm prominently in the display, and it would be considered a tax deductible contribution. Thanks and best wishes, Joseph Gordon Campaign Associate Conserve Our Ocean Legacy Campaign National Environmental Trust 1200 Eighteenth Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 202-887-1347 jgordon@net.org www.oceanlegacy.org www.net.org

Logodae

Sep 19, 2007 at 4:13 PM

It's certainly a good cause, but I'm having trouble imagining what a fun anti-overfishing game might look like. Do you have any specific ideas?

Hyptosis

Sep 19, 2007 at 6:03 PM

I would tremendously love to help with art, but I'm very busy. Still if you need any splash art, load screens, promotional art, shoot me an e-mail and i'll give it to you at no charge. Contact me at my username (at) gmail.com. Oh, my username is Hyptosis. Good cause guys.

erlend_sh

Sep 19, 2007 at 10:58 PM

I won!

Anyways, this sounds very interesting, and it would be very nice to help a good cause while also having a little something to add to your resumé. Still, I'd like to know more about what exactly it is you have in mind here. I got the feeling you're talking about a game that can be played directly online, like this one right? Just a simple mini-game that is fun for a few minutes every day, might even be a little addictive?

I could maybe help out with the concept part of the game, if you could just give me some more guidelines to go by, especially what timeframe you have in mind, as that is basically what decides how elaborate this game can be made. I'd expect (and suggest) that you go for a very small and simple concept just like that whalegame, see how well your own game turns out, and then you might even have a try at game #2.

There are many overachievers around here who are in dire need of a simple and very achievable project like this, just to get a decent start and a finished project for once.

Well, lastly I'd suggest you try to get in touch with some of the people around here who are in the professional gaming industry (I myself am not, but I'm working my way there), tell them your basic idea and planned timeframe, and they can in return tell you how many and what kind of people you would need for such a project, as well as a possibly redone timeframe (i.e. deadline).

Edit: Private message sent.

[Edited by - Sadr on September 20, 2007 12:58:27 AM]

VladR

Sep 20, 2007 at 2:28 AM

I could use my engine and art assets and create either a short game or a stand-alone screensaver (using my own tested screensaver framework developed over the course of last few years).

Some older screens (pardon the futuristic architecture and guns - that wouldn

t be there of course):

 Whales 
 Dolphins 
 Sharks 
 Vegetation 
 More Vegetation 

I believe a screensaver might be a better choice since those tend to spread faster by a word of mouth (especially underwater ones with corals and fish).

Plus, with screensaver, you can precisely time the messages with the on-screen activity, sort-of like a TV commercial.

Rough Idea - start showing beautiful underwater colorful sceneries, fish in herds swimming around, with some basic textual statistics shown at the corner, then progress to desaturation of the picture, more grey/dying corals, less and less fish and at the end just empty ocean with dead whales/sharks on the ocean floor since they have nothing to eat (though, whales eat plankton, so they probably wouldn

t be influenced by lack of fish - not sure how the ocean ecosystem works actually) and finally the huge text : Act Now. Your vote counts (Or whatever else - you get the idea).

What do you think ?

VladR

Drigovas

Sep 20, 2007 at 4:08 AM

Since it is of importance [would be a shame for this thread to get deleted], you should have a look at the mandatory posting template, because your thread will be locked if you don't follow those rules.

jbadams

Sep 20, 2007 at 10:12 AM

Quote:
Original post by Drigovas
Since it is of importance [would be a shame for this thread to get deleted], you should have a look at the mandatory posting template, because your thread will be locked if you don't follow those rules.

This is one of the fairly rare cases where I'm willing to make an exception, largely on the basis that a) Joseph is from a completely non-technical background (as far as we know) and probably isn't able to provide some of the relevant details himself and b) I think it's a good cause that deserves to find the help if anyone is willing to do it.

Please do get in contact if you think you might be able to help with this one guys; not only is it a very good cause, but it could be some good exposure and a great resume piece, and from the founds of it need not neccesarily be particularly complex.

Good luck finding some suitable help Joseph. [smile]

nsmadsen

Sep 20, 2007 at 12:01 PM

I agree with the others, this is a great cause! Joseph, I've emailed you.

Thanks,

Nathan

Ocean Legacy

Sep 21, 2007 at 2:19 PM

Thanks for all of your generous offers of help!!! That was much more of a response than I expected. I'm beginning to understand what is necessary to create a game, and we've started building a team. We could still use a lot of help, so please keep writing!

acidwillburnyou

Sep 21, 2007 at 2:37 PM

Quote:
Original post by VladR
I believe a screensaver might be a better choice since those tend to spread faster by a word of mouth (especially underwater ones with corals and fish).

Plus, with screensaver, you can precisely time the messages with the on-screen activity, sort-of like a TV commercial.

Rough Idea - start showing beautiful underwater colorful sceneries, fish in herds swimming around, with some basic textual statistics shown at the corner, then progress to desaturation of the picture, more grey/dying corals, less and less fish and at the end just empty ocean with dead whales/sharks on the ocean floor since they have nothing to eat (though, whales eat plankton, so they probably wouldn`t be influenced by lack of fish - not sure how the ocean ecosystem works actually) and finally the huge text : Act Now. Your vote counts (Or whatever else - you get the idea).

What do you think ?

VladR

I think this is a much better idea than investing in a game as you would definitely have a broader audience with the screen-saver as apposed to a marine-based game. You can also make many screensavers in the time it takes to make a game ;)

Best of luck either way, and good to see your commitment to a noble cause.

-Karan

Logodae

Sep 21, 2007 at 3:50 PM

I don't think you want a screensaver. People have to download and install a screensaver (and then uninstall it once it's delivered its message, because frankly, nobody wants a depressing screensaver), rather than just clicking a link.

A simple Flash game is more accessible, more interesting, and still relatively easy to make. I do think you'll want to get it onto the various portals that host free/demo games, so you should plan on integrating links to your petition into the game itself, rather than on a sidebar like Whale's Revenge.

Phyxx

Sep 22, 2007 at 12:24 AM

I've been toying with Flex with the aim of recreating some of the old Amiga/Genesis type 2D games. As it turns out my prototype wprk may be useful to you. If you're interested I could easily flesh the game out (it is pretty basic, but you should get the idea).

http://ogrescript.sourceforge.net/SWF/flextest.swf

erlend_sh

Sep 22, 2007 at 2:29 PM

You can all have a look at this thread to see the current concept for this game, and its future plans.

Phyxx, I sent you a pm yesterday.

Ocean Legacy

Sep 24, 2007 at 3:59 PM

Thanks for all of your help. We've chosen Sadr to lead this project and I know he's been in contact with many of you already. Please see his post in the game design section at http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=465187. Best wishes, Joseph

Ocean Legacy

Sep 25, 2007 at 9:53 AM

We could still use help with graphic design. Thanks.

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