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Friday, June 30, 2006 |

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Design Doc for Innovation Database of SimVillage

Friday, June 16, 2006 |

Design Doc for Innovation Database of SimVillage

by Darian Hickman

06/01/06

Executive Summary

The Innovation Database is a predecessor to the video game. Here social entrepreneurs can upload information about their innovations be they microcredit programs, solar powered refrigerators, or waste management companies in Peru.

Objectives

Showcase the innovations around the world relevant to underdeveloped nations.

Organize all the info necessary for adding the technologies to the “SimVillage” game.

Give these entrepreneurs a site to upload their innovations to be considered for the game.

Requirements

Only needs to scale to 1000 innovations.

In addition to all the structured data, there needs to be a field for adding unstructured data in plain text or html form.

Must be able to upload photos to the web server, not necessarily in the database but servable by the web server.

Must support multiple accounts for users to upload. Browsing the database doesn't require an account. Hopefully we can just reuse the login code and mysql scripts of phpbb. http://www.phpbb.com/

Javascript for client-side input validation, ie, make sure numbers are numbers, emails are actual emails, etc.

Platform

Unless there is a compelling reason otherwise we shall use:

Linux server, apache web server, mysql database backend, php or perl middleware; phpbb for managing user accounts and also for forum discussions.

Must Have Features:

Add/Edit/Delete an innovation one at a time.

Export tables to csv or tab seperated values.

Browse by category, price, geography, inventor/founder, etc.

Browse all

Nice to Have Features:

Bulk Add/Edit/Delete all your innovations from a csv file.

Bulk Add/Delete images somehow.

Generic search like google for the entire site.

Click column headers and resort the view of the innovations based on that column.

Mashup with google maps displaying where the innovations are being used and also where they could be used.

Tentative Table Definitions

Most of these field come from google base attributes. A secondary objective is to make the table columns correspond with google base attributes to make it super-easy to upload my database into google base.

Table “Innovation”{

pkey id

title

description

icon (image specifically created to be the icon for this innovation within the game)

link (link to relevant website)

image link (image uploaded by the entrepreneur they want posted with their innovation.)

expiration date

label (comma separated list of keywords or key phrase, ie “public health, education, peru, waste management”)

price

installation_cost

used_in (this is a list of places be it cities, states, countries, regions)

could_be_used_in (another list of places where it might be useful)

monthly_operating_cost (how much it generally costs the customer to use the product/service)

net_monthly cash_flow (how much money the innovation produces for the customer)

}

The following lists of possible fields are straight up copied from the google base attributes list. Some of these might go in. I need to have a few more discussions with some social entrepreneurs to figure out what makes sense:

Products – items available for sale
currency, delivery_notes, delivery_radius, location, manufacturer, manufacturer_id, model_number, payment_accepted, payment_notes, pickup, price, price_type, product_type, quantity, size, upc, weight

Services – available services
currency, delivery_notes, delivery_radius, location, payment_accepted, payment_notes, price, price_type, service_type

Business Attributes

STORE_CODE: The store code is a unique ID that you can assign to each of your business locations. These codes can help you identify your businesses at a glance.
NAME: The name of your business that will appear in Google Maps.
ADDRESS_LINE_1: The street address of the business.
CITY: The city where your business is located.
STATE: The state where your business is located.
POSTAL_CODE: A valid 5 digit, 5-4, or 5 4 zip code.
COUNTRY_CODE: The ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 short country name where your business is located.
(NOTE: The Google Maps business locations bulk upload option is currently only available for the US and UK)
MAIN_PHONE: This main phone number will appear in Google Maps.

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About

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 |

Contact	Founder - Darian Hickman \| +1 (650) 464-5342 founder@villagethegame.com
Jobs	Build a game to transform billions of lives.
Team	List of people who have made Village possible.
Timeline	A month by month log from May 2006 to present.
Friends of Village	Companies we are featuring in the game as well as marketing partners.

Village is SimCity for the Third World.

Instead of being mayor, be an entrepreneur. Build and run companies that transform lives. Village is a realtime strategy game for the PC that immerses the player into the role of an entrepreneur building companies to bring prosperity to the villages of the Third World.

Poor countries have a challenging mix of problems.

Almost everyone has seen a movie, a documentary, or website discussing extreme poverty, lack of drinking water, starvation, or the fight against AIDS. There's plenty of opportunity to discover the plight of poverty on the world. Now it's time to share the solutions.

Village the Game shows off the best solutions to extreme poverty.

These solutions are sustainable, eco-friendly, and provide income for the world's poorest. Start and run your own microcredit bank, sell irrigation pumps that help farmers grow ten times more food. Bring affordable solar power and mobile phone technology to your village. Test your favorite strategies in-game with villages modeled after the real world.

The audience for Village is large and growing.

Whether it is lending money to microentrepreneurs through Kiva.org or signing petitions at One.org every indicator says the audience that cares about extreme poverty and wants to take action is large and growing.

Play it. Love it. Live it.

The impact of Village doesn't stop at raising awareness of solutions. It continues into inspiring action: First learn how cool microcredit is, then go to www.Kiva.org and try microlending for real. Experiment with micromedical clinics in Kenya then recruit friends you met inside the game to fund a franchise in Tanzania.

Town-building is fun!

Games like Westward entertain players with building a Wild West town during the Gold Rush Era. In Virtual Villagers the player creates a thriving tropical community on an island. Village the Game takes place in today's Wild West: the Third World; often within the beauty of tropical landscapes.

We're bringing home this fun as a casual download.

Although Village will evolve into massively multiplayer online game, Village 1.0 is a casual download. It's single player action designed for 12 hours of gameplay. The design document is ready for a talented team to take it from the functional demo it is now to a polished icon of reality gaming.

Become a part of history.

As billions live without life's basic necessities there are millions who crave to have deep meaningful impact on the lives of others. When these millions discover the power they have to transform the lives of billions, everybody wins. Village is the chance to discover that power. Village is a game worth winning.

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Contact

Darian Hickman - Founder
Tel: (407) 697 -6392
Email: darian.hickman@ villagethegame.com
1570 N Holliston Ave, Pasadena, CA 91104

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Questions for the experts

I came up with some critical questions for my game plan. If you're an expert in game development and got some answers please send me an email: answers@villagethegame.com.

How much does it really cost to build a quality game if you're not building your own gaming engine or graphics engine?
What's the best game engine to build on?
What should I expect to pay for sound effects, original compositions, and licensed music?
What's the cost difference between 2D animation and 3D animation?
Considering I'm not pushing the limits of graphics or gaming engines what quality of game could I build for $70,000?
How much would it cost to build Warcraft II with 2006 technology?

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Concept art and getting ready to pursue investors

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 |

Reply to: gigs-171330820@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-06-13, 9:36PM PDT

I am independently producing a game for now called "Village". I want your help getting the concept art done, art I intend to use in the game and on the website for the game and in the proposals to recruit investors. In it's final form Village is a massively multiplayer online strategy game for the PC that immerses the player into the role of an entrepreneur building companies to bring prosperity to the villages of the third world.

I need your help creating artwork to depict third world villages/villagers and the technologies the entrepreneurs will be selling: everything from irrigation pumps, to solar cells. All the technology and innovations I'm including in the game actually exist, such as this pump from Kickstart.

no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Compensation: budget: $3000k

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Game Proposal

Saturday, June 10, 2006 |

Village is a real-time strategy game for the PC that immerses the player into the role of an entrepreneur building companies to bring prosperity to the villages of the third world.

Village Mission
Village exists to get people addicted to third world development and to let social entrepreneurs show off their brilliant solutions to extreme poverty.

Village Game Play
Fly over a rural third world village. Watch farmers tending to their crops, villagers buying and selling goods in the town markets doing what they can to survive extreme poverty. Select a villager to see what income, education, and tools they have. Then decide what to provide: microcredit, solar panels, irrigation pumps. Watch as farms flourish, villagers build new homes, and schools grow larger with healthier children. Win over the hearts of your people as you transform this forgotten place into a vibrant sustainable icon of development done right.

Village Evolution
2006 – Starting as a prototype collectible card game and board game, Village team commenced development of the realtime strategy demo.

2007 – From demo completion in first quarter 2007, Village team gets major round of funding to go to market with a single-player casual download.

2008 - Building on earlier success, Village evolves into a multiplayer online realtime simulation inspiring an international social/professional network of entrepreneurs.

2009 – Village launches the first tournament simulating a real village in Kenya. Winners receive cash prizes to go to Kenya and build their village for real. Transformational gaming is now a proven concept.

2010 – Village, fully funded and established success, launches several more products; online collectible card game, a reality TV show: “Pimp My Village”, and a web-portal for launching new ventures in developing nations: “Village Remote”.

Competitive Advantage: Established networks for viral distribution
The greatest competitive advantage of Village is the tie to reality. Because Village is dealing with real problems and real solutions there are thousands of NGO's and for-profit enterprises that benefit from exposure inside the game and therefore compels them to help market the game. Organizations such as Ashoka, Kiva, and Kickstart benefit from seeing this game reach a wide audience as it brings awareness and donations to their cause. Companies providing tools to the poor advertise inside Village so that missionaries and aid organizations choose their tools for their development projects.

Strategic Timing: Reality is hot!
The hottest trend in TV is reality TV and transformational TV: Pimp my Ride, Extreme Makeover. The hottest trend in movies is geo-political: Syriana, Crash, An Inconvenient Truth. The time is now for the gaming industry to catch this wave and create reality/transformational gaming. At the same time, social enterprise and sustainable development are the hottest topics around the globe propelling the growth of blogs like www.WorldChanging.com

Who Will Play
The first audience will be those who already care about international development, followed by strategy game enthusiasts who grew up playing games like SimCity and Railroad Tycoon. Beyond established gamers, comes the university and high school audience. Village also has promise in the casual download market that is currently dominated by women over the age of 30. Popular games like Diner Dash prove this audience loves games that let them help others.

Village offers a powerful, meaningful, and lucrative bridge between gaming and reality. Given all the possible strategic alliances with companies and nonprofits, and the reality trends in film and TV, Village is poised for gaming history.

Labels: concept

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Valuable Links

Tuesday, June 06, 2006 |



Index of SimVillage
SimVillage Blog
Google Groups: SimVillage

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Legal Information

Monday, June 05, 2006 |

Copyright © 2006-2007 VillagetheGame.com, LLC. All rights reserved.
Village the Game is the trading name of VillagetheGame.com, LLC, hereafter referred to as Village.
Village also does business as “Village the Game”.

All editorial content and graphics on this site is the property of Village and protected by United States and international copyright laws. All software used on this site is the property of Village and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content on this site is the exclusive property of Village and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Re-use of any of our content and graphics online for any purpose is strictly prohibited. An exception to this rule is that pages may be downloaded into a web browser cache or printed for personal use only. The HTML used to create these pages, the look and feel of the site is also covered by copyright.

Trademarks

Village, the Village logo and associated trade dress are trademarks of VillagetheGame.com, LLC. Other brands may be trademarks of their respective owners.

All other brand names, product names or trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability

This site is provided "as is" without a warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. Village assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this site or other documents referenced by or linked from this site. Village has no control over the content of other sites linked from this site.

Village does not warrant that this site, its servers, or email sent from Village are free of viruses or other harmful components. Village will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of this site, including, but not limited to direct, indirect, incidental, punitive and consequential damages.

Applicable Law

By visiting VillagetheGame.com, you agree that the laws of the state of California, without regard to principles of conflict of laws, will govern these Conditions of Use and any dispute of any sort that might arise between you and VillagetheGame.com LLC or its affiliates.

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Village the Game: Play it. Love it. Live it.

The latest cover art sketch

Design Doc for Innovation Database of SimVillage

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