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It’s the beginning of the 21st century, and the tasks of industrial and infrastructural progress in the developing world face as much social unrest, political compromise, economic scarcities, ecological disruption, international disputes, and cross-cultural misunderstandings as ever. The new generation of global engineers are called upon to undertake managing these tasks with a more holistic and active ethics than ever - but can these ideals survive the pressures of the real world? You take on a consulting role as a civil and environmental engineer advising one of a variety of factions involved in a realistic developing country environment. Each faction, advised by a different player in a cross-cultural, globally online multiplayer platform, has a different agenda that is likely to conflict with, or complicate others’ - national governments, local rights activists, environmentalist groups, international financial institutions, aid donors, and development agencies. Your goal is to balance technical engineering ideals and solutions, demands of your faction, the realpolitik and economic struggles of development, and the short and long term consequences of the projects you are involved in on the country’s progress.

The game game takes place in a series of special historically-based and contemporary "what-if?" scenarios such as Three Gorges dam development, China, 1980-2030; the Aral Sea, Soviet Union, 1950-2000; Hoover Dam/Colorado River, USA, 1930-1980. Each scenario in Daedelus' End is chosen for its complexity, historical record, and ability to elucidate important development ideas.

To succeed at furthering their agendas, players must explore and effectively exploit the three information environments of a game . The three environments are

• The "live and actual" landscape populated by AI-driven characters who can be encountered by the player. This landscape is seen through a freely mobile first-person perspective. Graphically, this will look like the experience of walking/driving around an actual landscape. The landscape (buildings, vegetation, water landmarks etc) would change as development projects impact the area;
• A"computer-analyzed" landscape, graphically represented as a muli-function "satellite map" with a range of selectable information overlay tools representing the actively changing demographics, ecologies, economic flows etc.;
• The engineering information map and archive. The map illuminates the various flows, relations, and histories of the multiple development projects across the landscape. The archive provides access to library simulations of technical engineering concepts

The interface aspires toward a professional, technical aesthetic. Players view interactive satellite maps, virtual teamwork environments, use of multimedia news/documentary footage.

Copyright 2002, MIT.