Language: German

This is a game prototype that illustrates the concept of cascading tipping points to young people of ages 10-16 (e.g, tipping points in the climate system, but also complex systems in general).

Overview

In the game, you take on the role of the Rahui of a historical Polynesian village on a pacific island, the chief manager of resources. A crucial livestock that the villagers are raising are pigs, which roam the island freely, eating the underbrush of the forests and grasslands to survive. The villagers are similarly moving around in the forests, chopping trees.

The island environment is fragile, though. If there is too much browsing by the pigs and too much chopping of wood, the forests and grasslands degrade. If the degradation is too extensive, thresholds of the island's hydrology and climate might be crossed, severely hampering the regrowth capabilities of the plant life.

Left unchecked, the increasing numbers of pigs will devastate the environment, rendering the island uninhabitable.

Your job as the islands Rahui (manager of the environment) is to prevent that.

How to Play

The **goal** of the game is to achieve the highest score, which represents the villagers happiness, without destroying the island in the given timeframe (currently 1:30 minutes).

The pig herd is multiplying steadily. You can send away one pig to another island by pressing "S" or clicking the "Schwein verschiffen"-Button. You can also press "D" or click the "Notfall-Festschmaus" button to slaughter half the island's pigs for a feast. This option is only possible every 10 seconds, though. There will be info-popups that come up when something notable happens needing your attention.

You can pause and unpause the game by pressing "E". This also gets rid of the infotexts.

Keybindings

"E" - pause/unpause; close infotexts 

"Q" - restart the game "Esc" - end and close the game

"S" - send away 1 pig 

"D" - prepare half of all pigs for feast

 "F" - spawn 1 pig 

"G" - spawn 10 pig