Emergent Game Group @ GT's Experimental Game Lab

Eco Manager Demo

Description

The Eco Manager Demo demonstrates how complex behavior emerges from a managed ecosystem in Mermaids. It explores how gameplay emerges from knowledge of complex systems - in this case, a virtual ecosystem. The Eco Manager is a module that manages the ecological relationships between types of game objects. For example, the Eco Manager maintains that small fish school with other small fish and that sharks school with small fish, but the small fish do not school with the shark. The EcoManger controls other ecological relationships, including consumption, excretion, hiding relationships. Small fish consume oxygen, and they excrete carbon dioxide. When the small fish are scared of predators, they hide in the coral.

In this demo, red indicates that the organism is attacking, yellow indicates fleeing,and purple indicates hiding.

Controls

MOVE MOUSE - aim the mermaid movement.
CLICK MOUSE ON MERMAID - plant a coral or pick up kelp.

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News

5.09.07
Celia Pearce discusses Mermaids game and the Digital Media program at Georgia Tech in an interview on Gamasutra.

4.24.07
Celia Pearce will present a lecture at Savannah College of Art and Design on Emergent Game Group's Mermaids game, a MMOG created around the principle of utilizing large-scale emergent group behavior as a design material. For details, click here.

4.12.07
Celia Pearce will present the Emergent Game Group's Mermaids game prototype at the Indie MMOG Conference in Minneapolis this weekend in a presentation entitled: Designing Unconventional Games Using Conventional Game Engines. Pearce will talk about the number of ways in which the game has pushed MMOG game conventions and technology. To learn more, visit http://www.mmogamedev.info/

2.14.07
Mermaids Demo to Preview at GDC The first full prototype of the Mermaids project will be shown at the Game Developers Conference in the Multiverse booth, where it will be used to demonstrate its game engine, which is being used for the project. For more info on Multiverse go to http://www.multiverse.net. To learn about GDC, visit http://www.gdconf.com/.

12.13.06
11 Alive News interviews Celia Pearce about Mermaids design and prototypes presented at Demo Day