by Edward Grabowski, David Lester, and Chris Foster
We are big fans of many business games, but have especially fond memories of a type that is seldom seen these days û the OIL TYCOON games. These cast you as a wildcatter, trying to build an oil company, and thereby make a million or six. They were smallish games because they remained focused on their one task û oil production and sales û but they were lots of fun. We wanted to recapture that fun, and to enhance it with new elements like empire-building, changing technology, and fierce competition.
At the same time, it struck us that the energy crisis seems to be "old news," even though the speed at which we're using up the world's fossil fuels still seems to be accelerating. In practice, as much of Asia becomes significantly better off over the coming decades, consumption of electricity per head will grow exponentially, given the high population growth in these nations. Unless major new sources of energy are found and used, a crisis seems inevitable not too many years from now. Ever keen to see the silver lining to a dark cloud, it struck us that this represented a major strategic challenge to the world û what better subject matter to incorporate right into our new game?! So POWERHOUSE was born.
We decided to set the game in the near-future (nothing like an imminent crisis to make a game more involving!). Humanity has come dangerously close to depleting the Earth's reserves of fossil fuels. Nervous at the prospect of seeing their cash flows dwindling, the oil majors engage in a spate of consolidation (through legal acquisitions, and less legal eliminations . . . ) until just four mega-corporations remain in control of the world's energy û the Powerhouses.
In the game, you are cast as a Powerhouse CEO. Your job is to make money for your corporation û and to make YOUR powerhouse the leader of the pack. As CEO, you have access to nine types of energy generation: oil, coal, gas, geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear, hydro-electric and wave/tidal. You must send survey teams to scout for potential energy sites all around the world, and build a network of rigs, refineries, pipelines and generators to cover your current and expected customer base.
Meanwhile, you must negotiate with governments for drilling rights and contracts to supply them with electricity, and also research technologies to improve your ability to provide energy for mankind.
You'll need to be careful to expand your empire without harming the environment TOO much; democratic governments need to be re-elected û if they lose, who knows whether the incoming regime will look on your activities favorably. And you won't even be able to relax if the government is not a democracy: some may throw you out, nationalizing your assets, others may simply adjust the terms of your contract in their favor (on a take it or leave it basis!) while less fortunate governments may be overthrown as a result of excessive ecological damage. You have been warned!
Powerhouse is unique in that it combines a compelling storyline with an expanded business empire/energy game; it is the only game to cover all nine major energy sources, and adds research into new technologies (some still only theoretically possible at the time of writing). Unlike games such as our own Air Bucks, where new planes become available from time to time, the technology structure is far more interesting in Powerhouse. You can do research into a variety of energy types, and within some of those types, for example oil, several different types of structures û for example drilling rigs, refineries, etc. û and combine the individual parts in different ways for a large variety of possible results. Technology types will affect such areas as how deep you can drill, how accurate your surveys are, how clean/safe your operations are, how economical they are, how efficiently you can harness fuel into electricity, and so on.
Clearly, some areas of the world are suitable for certain types of energy generation, while other areas suit other types. There will be a "randomize geology" option so that you can play the game with land masses that are familiar, while providing the longevity of unlimited number of effective game boards. In fact, there will in addition be a randomize world option for those of you who like to REALLY mix things up! Whichever map you're playing on, though, one of the fun parts to the game is not knowing exactly how much oil, coal, or gas you have in your current field; how accurate is your survey? It gives us a real kick to discover that the 20 million barrels you thought you had is in fact 400 million!
You will need to strike a balance between the different energy types throughout the game, because of the geographic and ecological differences, and eventually develop the technologies that will replace the world's fossil fuels, hopefully before they run out!
Another exciting element of designing this game was the ability to use realistic data for quite a bit of the underlying model. Data on worldwide population growth and per capita energy consumption, as well as the basic costs and revenue streams of the energy industry, are fascinating as well as rewarding to include. But don't worry! We will be using the realistic data as a base for our model, rather than using all the tables exactly as is, so as to ensure that every game you play will be different. This is no "puzzle" to be worked out, but an open economic game with more than a touch of realism.
One of our first decisions was to render the game in Super VGA graphics; not only would this give the game that crisper, cleaner look most strategy gamers are so fond of, but also, by allowing us to present more data or icons on each screen, it would allow us to build a streamlined, more intuitive interface made up of fewer screens. We also decided to make this game turn-based, in response to customer requests.
One of our early decisions was to simplify the number of tasks the user has to do each turn. Air Bucks offers the power of more flexibility, for example allowing users to set prices, but at the same time it requires you to set the prices. With Powerhouse, we've worked hard to create a game which offers you significant decision-making ability, without REQUIRING such an enormous micro-management burden. We make games, not spreadsheets with graphics (THAT market is WAY too competitive for us!!!).
At the same time, we have strived, too, to maintain the almost unsurpassed feedback and information supply of Lords of the Realm, to enable you to make decisions in the game based upon sensible facts. The game will let you know WHY things happen a certain way, allowing you to focus on working out how you want to improve the situation.
Ever since we launched Air Bucks, many of our users have asked us to produce Windows versions of our games. We have not done so thus far, since the graphics overhead of Windows would slow our games to a crawl. As we were starting to code Powerhouse, though, Microsoft began showing off WinG, a device which lets developers get back much of the speed of DOS from within Windows. Powerhouse seemed like the perfect game for our first major Windows product (with its turn-based structure, SVGA graphics and tile-based terrain map) so, for those of you who have been waiting so long, your time has come. Powerhouse will be a Windows-only game.
Powerhouse will also be very much a CD game: at the time of writing, we are not sure whether we will even launch a floppy disk version. The CD will include full motion video, extensive use of photographs within the game, and lots of professional voice acting (i.e. speech!). For example, all of the ENN (Energy News Network) reports the player receives will be video-based, using a combination of filmed actors and file-footage of real generators, oil rigs and the like. Additional video sequences will provide glimpses into the cutthroat, corporate world of the future, providing a vivid backdrop for the game that takes its cues from both Cyberpunk fiction and the Robocop films. Digitized speech will be used extensively, incorporated into reports that do not use video.
We will be working hard to ensure the computer opponents give you a good run for your money, as with most of our games now, Powerhouse will support modem play, so you can try your hand at beating your friends at yet another game.
The result of our work should go far beyond the old "energy baron" games, by providing a rich blend of building, power grabbing and cut-throat competition. When we set about to make a business game, we MEAN business!
