Serious Game Classification

Plan It Green is an educational city building and management game with ecological themes, produced by National Geographic. As the new mayor of a city, the player has to convert the existing buildings to make them more energy-efficient, and make other major reforms to the infrastructure. The basic gameplay has similar mechanics to the Build-a-lot series. After selecting one of the buildings or vacant lots, upgrade and build options appear on the interface at the bottom. Most of the screen shows one of the city's districts in isometric graphics, with the goals of each level displayed at the top in the main campaign mode, along with the timer and three meters showing the current level of the mayor's popularity, citizens' satisfaction and environment health. The cost of everything is paid with tax revenues, collected at the end of each "day" (that takes about a minute). Extra electric energy generated by the ecological grid can be sold to increase the funds. Materials have to be purchased for the upgrades and constructions.

The upgrades change according to the building function, and some are only available after creating one of the district additions, like bicycle tracks and recycling centers. Residences can be upgraded to be more eco-friendly, by converting the lamps to fluorescent ones, installing solar panels, creating a garden, applying thermal insulation paint, constructing a rainwater reclamation system and starting to recycle trash. Other buildings have some of these upgrades and specific ones. Business buildings can start using bicycles as transportation. Farms can adopt more organic and efficient practices.

Buildings are constructed by selecting a vacant lot, and choosing one of the available blueprints. Some buildings only become available after research, performed in a separate tab. Certain spaces are reserved to district upgrades, and can't be used to build directly. Parks and recreation areas can only be built in terrains full of vegetation. Existing buildings can be demolished, and part of their materials recycled and reclaimed for others.

In the main campaign mode, the objective is to achieve all goals listed at the top as fast as possible. In the free play mode, there are no goals and the player can continue from the district progress made in the campaign mode, or start from scratch. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : iPhone / iPod Touch - Macintosh - PC (Windows)

Links

• Play it Now !
• Download it Now !
• http://www.mobygames.com/game/plan-it-green/