Fog
AI Behaviour Designer and Engineer, Evaluator
2006
Description
Fog is a reimagining of the EcoRaft project and features both a new graphics system and a new set of animal species from the Channel Islands. In Fog, players must work at a fast pace to maintain equilibrium among species. Rather than restoring devastated islands to a healthy state, players explore the various interdependencies that exist in the Channel Islands ecosystem.
Fog features species native to the Channel Islands.
EcoRaft was built upon a propriety codebase, which limited our ability to distribute it. The goal of Fog, however, was to create an extendable development platform from which any group of developers, no matter how small or inexperienced, would be able to construct their own virtual ecosystems. To achieve this, the EcoRaft framework was abandoned and the system was rebuilt in Flash. Unfortunately, Flash imposed too many technical limitations to achieve the goal of developing an EcoRaft API. Although the Channel Islands simulation proved to be a fun addition to the EcoRaft universe, it did not live up to the standards set by the previous iteration.
Roles and Responsibilities
On the implementation side, I designed and developed behaviors for the simulated fox, moose, mouse, rabbit, and wolf populations. I was also responsible for several qualitative tasks. I designed an evaluation plan to measure the success of the simulation in educating its players on ecological principles. I also created accessory educational content, including lesson plans and web resources, to extend the Fog experience.
Technologies
Fog is an interesting hybrid between Flash and Java. The simulation is written entirely in Java. This application communicates using XML with a Flash program to display the graphics. The tablet PCs run a similar Java/Flash hybrid. Transfers between ecosystems are handled by the Java application. See the EcoRaft project for more information on the relationship between the tablet PCs and the ecosystems.
See Also
Please check out the following related projects and resources: