Earth Week Review: Imagine Earth -- Galaxies

 This week is Earth Week, which long-time followers may know is one of my favorite holidays to post content for! This year I decided to review a relevant game that just released new content: Imagine Earth. Thank you so much to Keymailer and developer Serious Bros. for sending me a free review copy of the base game and the new downloadable content, Galaxies! Imagine Earth is a city builder/simulation game in which you colonize newly discovered planets and try your hardest not to destroy their environments.

Since my first time playing Imagine Earth included the new Galaxies DLC, it was difficult at first for me to distinguish which parts of the game were from the add-on and which parts were from the base game. It turns out the campaign, where you are assigned a few different planets to build on, is part of the Galaxies DLC. I started the game by playing the campaign, since I assumed this was the closest thing the game had to a story mode, and is the first thing I would normally do when starting a new simulation game. It turns out, however, that the campaign is actually part of the Galaxies paid add-on content! I have to wonder how I would have played and enjoyed the game if I had tried it before the DLC dropped. After doing the tutorial planet and the second planet in the campaign, I moved on to playing around in the sandbox mode. My total playtime as of this writing is over 6 hours. 

Since the game's description boasts features that make players think about the environment and climate -- the Steam page says, "Conduct research to protect your colonists from disasters and avoid a climate crisis," -- my main reason for choosing to review Imagine Earth is because I was excited to see a space exploration sim that takes climate changes into consideration. Unfortunately, I feel a little let down by the actual environmental aspects of the game -- I probably had my hopes a little too high for a game like this. Here I will break it down into a pros and cons list, specifically where it concerns environmental awareness and modern-day best practices for sustainability:

Pros:

• "World Congress" votes to implement environmental laws for the entire planet, including things like "Introduce 'Green Building Grant' of 20%" and "Introduce 'Coal Energy Tax of 5%,'" etc.
• Research items include both sustainable options and "efficient" options that will harm the environment, and the good and bad effects of both are described to affect player decisions. Research options include things like new filters for power plants (a sustainable option) or giving antibiotics to cows to produce more meat (an "efficient" but overall harmful option). 
• The needs and growth rates of different types of trees are taken into consideration, and the trees you plant or leave on the planet are beneficial to the citizens.
• Things like overfishing, logging, and other environmental over-use are taken into consideration and over-using resources can have a poor effect on your cities. 

Cons:

• Outdated energy technology like coal burning is still used in this futuristic(?) society? 
• Capitalism is alive and well in space.
• Colonization is seen as a good thing, and there is no discussion about the harms of colonizing.
• On Earth, invasive species that travel with humans from one continent or ecosystem to another are a major problem. This problem would likely be even worse with space travel, yet it is not addressed in the game.
• The opening cutscene shows spaceships flying past a giant television advertisement floating in space. This excessive use of energy may look fancy, but it is horribly unsustainable. Why was this choice made?
• This is a personal con -- the scientist guy who pops up occasionally to tell you things is really, really creepy. Not because he's an old white man -- that is the expected demographic -- but because... I don't know. His voice doesn't match his face? I wouldn't have mentioned this but I saw other reviewers and posters discussing how creepy this character is and I have to agree. Every time he popped up in the game I had an almost visceral reaction.
• The mining of precious metals is still common practice in this "futuristic" game. Mining gold and other monetary "resources" is a major part of the experience. There is little discussion of the environmental impact of this action, or the sociological implications. Players are expected to use explosives to blow up mountains in order to mine resources. In the campaign mode, there is no avoiding this action. This doesn't feel very environmentally friendly to me.

Accessibiity:

As per my own disabilities, Imagine Earth is mostly. but not entirely, accessible to me. Simulation games are often difficult for me because they usually have small font sizes that are not adjustable. Font sizes were not a problem for me in Imagine Earth, but may be difficult for other players who are more blind than I am. The main way in which the game was less accessible for me was that it required me to do some mental math, which can be really stressful for someone who has dyscalculia, as I do. The options menu is very limited and has few options that are specifically included for accessibility. 

Sustainable Science Fiction for Future Reading:

If you are a writer or game developer who is thinking about creating a futuristic world that is more sustainable than our own, here are a few books I recommend where the authors have thought about future sustainability and environmentalism:

The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

More ideas can be found on This Goodreads Page, though I have not personally vetted all of these books.

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Review: Wanderstop by Ivy Road

 

Image by Ivy Road

Wanderstop is a beautiful game about imperfection, taking it slow, and drinking lots and lots of tea. The heroine of the story, Alta, is the best in her field. That her field is combat is less relevant than the simple fact that she is the very best -- like no one ever was. But then Alta is beat -- more than once. She is no longer the best, and she doesn't know how to be less than perfect. So she travels into the woods to find her old teacher and to try to, once again, become the best. How could there be any greater goal? 

Many of us can relate to Alta. Phrases like, "You can be anything," or "Believe in yourself" proliferate in the American education system and elsewhere. The so-called "gifted kid to burnout pipeline" has claimed many adults who were told as children that they would do great things, save the world, or even become world leaders when they grew up. When the adults told them that, they fully believed it and tried to achieve it, and many eventually experienced extreme burnout at a young age. I'm certain many game developers can also relate to Alta's struggles, as the commonality of crunch practices in game development spaces is causing high levels of burnout for game developers. 

An exhausted Alta eventually finds herself at Wanderstop, a simple tea shop somewhere in the middle of the forest. The shop's keeper, Boro, suggests that Alta is too exhausted to continue, and offers her a job making and serving tea. Through her time at Wanderstop Alta learns that sometimes we really do just need to slow down or stop entirely -- that pushing ourselves to the brink of death may not be worth it, and maybe goals need to be adjusted sometimes. 

Characters:

The way Wanderstop approaches the secondary characters in the story is somewhat revolutionary. Players know a lot about Alta, as she is the main character of the game. The other characters who enter the tea shop, however, are a little more opaque. We get to know them a bit, learn about their problems, begin to pick our favorites and decide that we really like these characters, and then... they leave. Unlike the quests you'll encounter in most RPGs, Alta is not required or encouraged to fix the problems of the people who frequent her tea shop. Instead she simply listens when they speak, occasionally responds with helpful or less-than-helpful dialogue choices, and then everyone goes about their own personal business. If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's that we may be the main characters in our own stories, but we are not the main character in other peoples' lives. It is not my (real life) job to fix others' problems, even if we are friends. Sometimes the best I can do, as a person, is listen to what people want to tell me, and let them figure out their lives while I figure out mine.

Accessibility options in Wanderstop

Accessibility: 

Wanderstop has some great accessibility options that have been very helpful for me, personally. As usual, I cannot speak on all disabilities and can only speak on my own disabilities and accessibility needs. The options menu can be accessed at any time during the game, and accessibility options include subtitles in different sizes, a dyslexia-friendly font that can be turned on or off, multiple options for colorblind support, and a motion sickness dot. Other very specific functions in the game can be tweaked as well, including "hold bellows button to heat" (so you don't have to button mash), camera sway and sensitivity, dialogue speed, and more. My own primary accessibility needs involve motion sickness and button mashing, so I'm happy to see options to reduce both of those problems for me. I'm pleased with the outcome and I personally have no hindrances to playing this game with my disabilities. 

I will note that I have been playing the game on the Steam Deck and on my television. While Steam Deck warns that the text may be too small to read, I have not had a problem with this, and I played with the subtitles on medium size. I am legally blind but not fully unable to see, so while some games are difficult for me in this area, I have had no problem with Wanderstop. I suspect Steam will update its information to reflect this after Wanderstop is officially released. 

Story:

The story in Wanderstop may be short, but it is far from shallow. Alta is a fully realized character and the story is more about her journey than anything else. Alta is human and Alta is all of us. Her emotions feel very real and raw. There isn't much more I can say about the story without spoiling it, but I can say with confidence that Wanderstop is a story everyone should experience.

Graphics, Controls, Etc.:

I don't have a lot to say about the graphics. They are beautiful. They are gorgeous. The colors pop splendidly. The only more specific thing I can note is that when I started the game, I wondered if Wanderstop was created by the same developers who made Slime Rancher (it's not) because the graphics seemed so similar. Both games evoked a lot of emotions for me, so that may be part of the reason I noticed a similarity.

The controls in Wanderstop worked fluidly and I had no trouble whatsoever. I played on Steam Deck, both in handheld mode and docked to my television and attached to an X-Box controller. Everything ran surprisingly smoothly and I experienced no notable glitches or bugs! In this day and age, I'm very pleasantly surprised. 

Overall my experience with Wanderstop has been pretty much perfect. It's rare for me to have absolutely nothing bad to say about a thing I'm reviewing, yet here we are. Wanderstop will certainly go to the top of my favorites list, and I foresee many replays in my future. 

Wanderstop releases on March 11, 2025 on Steam and Playstation 5. Thank you to the developers, Ivy Road, for the free review copy. 

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Disability Represented in Video Games Panel at MomoCon 2024

 The video from the MomoCon panel on disability representation in video games was posted to YouTube back in August 2024 -- and here it is now on the blog! One of the biggest setbacks from speaking on disability representation from a lived experience is, of course, that you actually have a disability that can slow down your progress with things like updating your blog. But without further ado, here's the video! Feel free to go watch it on YouTube as well if the embedded version is less accessible for you.

Referenced Links:

Accessibility in gaming

"Nothing about us without us"

APA Style Guide on disability language

Is autism a disability?

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