Imagine Earth News

Dear players,

Serious Bros. proudly present the latest minor update for our building and simulation game, Imagine Earth. From now on, you can enjoy customizable keyboard controls! You can imagine how busy we two are keeping the global climate simulation up to date and adding new features. Nevertheless, we wanted to prioritize this feature due to interested inquiries from players.

We know how important control and precision are in gameplay. Every second counts when you're building a thriving civilization and want to expand faster than your competitors. With this latest update, you now have the ability to fully customize your keyboard layout to suit your individual playstyle and preferences.



Efficient and intuitive navigation and management of your cities is the key to success. Above all, we look forward to seeing how you, our dedicated and creative player community, will use this feature.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. Without your support, your feedback, and your passion for Imagine Earth, this update would not have been possible either.

[h3]Further Improvements[/h3]

• The duration for the production of items through buildings and upgrades has been increased by 25%.
  
• Additionally, the influence of additional buildings has been reduced. Previously, the time was halved with 8 buildings, but now it's only reduced by 25%.
  
• Rare resources are now immediately visible again after the blasting of mountains.
  
• Merchant Quest on Tuto and Joma is now triggered correctly again, even when a dialogue is still open.
  
• Merchant no longer sells Machinery on Tuto in order not to undermine the corresponding quest.
  
• We don't show building menu details while hovering over the CityCenter panel.
  
• We made explosions a bit louder.
  
• No more warning to be played while a message to the player is active.
  

In this spirit, we wish you a lot of fun with the new update! Best regards, Jens & Martin.

We are excited to announce that we are supporting WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation for World Oceans Day!

The WDC World Oceans Day Sale started on World Ocean Day and runs until 15th June, 10am PDT 2023, and you can save fin-tastic % off many games on the sales page.



Get 55% off right now while 20% of our net income goes to WDC.

WDC, Whale and Dolphin conservation is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins.



Their expert-led teams in the UK, Europe, the Americas, and Australasia work across the whole spectrum of threats, from climate breakdown to accidental entanglements in fishing gear. They bring together, and work hand-in-hand with, businesses, philanthropists, scientists, NGOs, governments and grassroots communities to find solutions to the problems faced by whales and dolphins.
Their aim is to reverse the global decline in whale and dolphin populations by:
- Stopping cruelty from deliberate harms such as whaling and captivity.
- Creating safe seas, free from the threat of pollution, collisions with vessels and accidental entanglement in fishing gear.
- Winning recognition of whales and dolphins as sentient, socially complex beings, and our allies in the fight against climate and nature breakdown.



Whales and dolphins are awe-inspiring. They are intelligent beings, vital for the health of the ocean and planet. They have suffered from terrible harm - deliberate and accidental - and their homes and populations are under threat. But it's not too late.

Together we can still help them recover and flourish and they can help us reconnect with the wild, and repair the damage we have caused.

If you want to read more about WDC, you can do so here: https://whales.org/
You can find many other amazing games in the sale here: https://bit.ly/OceansDaySteamSale23

Thank you for joining us and for supporting WDC!

In order to also initiate change with our climate crisis game project in the real world, we entered into various collaborations with NGOs that generate a great range of effects. Even more impactful actions are planned for the future, for which we are looking for partner organisations who are active in the field of sustainability, environmental and climate protection.

[h2]How We raise money [/h2]

• All Imagine Earth soundtracks sales net income is donated to reforestation.
  
• Starting with Green Game Jam '23 we plant a tree for every copy of Imagine Earth sold.
  
• Last year we implemented that player's can plant a real tree ingame if they plant 20 forest's on a single planet to reach the forester Steam achievement on steam.
  
• Regular Steam Charity Sale Events generated income donated to reforestation.
  

[h2]Impact Report 2023[/h2]



In 2023 we raised 5.170 $ with the from the sources mentioned above. As we only started with the 1 tree for 1 game strategy in June, this will definitely be more in 2024. And these are the amounts and organizations we have donated last year..

• 3236 $ - Whales and Dolphin Conservation
  
• 952 $ - Gamesforest Club
  
• 200 $ - WRLD Foundation
  
• 782 $ - Eden Reforestation Projects
  

[h2]Impact Report 2022 and Earlier[/h2]



[h2]Who We Work With[/h2]

[h3]Eden Reforestation Projects[/h3]

They work with local communities to restore forests on a massive scale, thereby creating jobs, protecting ecosystems, and helping mitigate climate change. All sales of the Imagine Earth soundtrack go to a reforestation project. Together with this organization, we have now planted over 46,000 trees until Februar 23.



[h3]WDC[/h3]
The Whales and Dolphins Conservation's aim is to protect. They have teams in Germany, the UK, Australia, the USA and Argentina to manage and support projects around the world. They organize an annual Steam Sale events for World Ocean Day, game studios receive a feature and donate a portion of their proceeds to marine mammal conservation.



[h3]Jingle Jam '22[/h3]
Jingle Jam has expanded to include unique live-streaming content hosted by a variety of creators from the Yogscast and beyond. Together with 80 other game studios, we raised over four million Euro in December '22 for various non-profit organizations such as WDC.



[h3]Green Game Jam[/h3]

This event is about game studios making activations in their established games and motivating their players to take action for the environment. The organizer Playing for the Planet is a UN initiative that wants to make games greener. We were able to plant 14,920 trees and Imagine Earth won the “Best Activation” award in the Forests category.



[h3]Game Forest Club[/h3]
We are a member of this initiative which enables game studios large and small to support
forest conservation projects of their choice around the globe through their contributions. It has 61 supporting companies, which together supported the protection of over 1,4 mil m2 of forest and the planting of over 78 000 trees.



[h3]Planet Play[/h3]
Is a marketplace where games are sold for Green Coins, 100% of which go to carbon reduction projects. We recently provided the store with a large number of keys for Imagine Earth to help with their project funding.



[h3]Playing for the Planet[/h3]
The Playing For The Planet Alliance was launched in 2019 during the Climate Summit at UN Headquarters in New York. The members of the Alliance have the ability to reach more than 1 billion video game players. In joining the Alliance, members have made commitments ranging from integrating green activations in games, reducing their emissions and supporting the global environment.



[h3]Steam[/h3]
We participated in various environmental Steam sales over the years and donated between 10-20 percent share of the net income to reforestation or sealife. This of course wouldn't be possible without the reach and the playerbase that steam offers.

Welcome to our latest update, with which we deliver nothing less than the long-awaited native Linux version. We hope for a good start on this new platform and serve you some more crisp features with update 1.12, but read for yourself. Summer greetings, Jens & Martin

[h2]Native Linux Support[/h2]



We have good news for all Linux users. After receiving a lot of requests to provide a native Linux version of Imagine Earth, the time has finally come.
We have ported all functionalities and tested the game on Ubuntu and SteamOS - so Imagine Earth can now be played as a native version on the Steam deck.
We appreciate feedback from all of you and hope you will enjoy the game!🚀🌎

[h2]New Challenge - Saving Planet B [/h2]



We have a special challenge for you this week, a new planet to basically explore the idea for a new game mode in Imagine Earth. Would be happy if you feel like thinking with us about how we can make this more interesting.

The basic idea is that the players don't have to build up a civilization first, but find a relatively heavily built-up planet with cities. So you become directly the rebuilder and improver of the world, which is an exciting challengel. The emissions balance is also already tipping into the negative, so climate change is imminent. So you have to consider with all expansion steps to compensate the additional emissions of the new buildings and additional supply buildings with reforestation and other methods.
In return, you'll find plenty of infrastructure and technology on the planet that you can take over and optimize through strategic realignment.
As I said, we're testing this out and seeing that we need to balance planets in this game mode to make it fun and challenging.

[h2]World Oceans Day Sale[/h2]



Help and get 55% off until June 15! The 2nd #WorldOceansDay Steam sale is LIVE to save whales and dolphins! Last year's Steam sale was our first attempt at a multi-title sale to raise funds for our conservation work, and it was a great success - we raised over £40,000 and collaborated with over 20 developers.

[h2]New construction ring[/h2]



An amazingly simple, yet effective change. The build ring just got bigger and now includes all the available build options plus the tools, functions and inventory. We studied other simulation games and their gamepad controls to come to this conclusion. As a result, the building ring is now also much more distinct from the building options and the individual building categories.

[h2]Hitech building in technology panel[/h2]



This move was only logical since we put the Hitech special buildings for terraforming and geoengineering into one category in the build menu, making them so much more available, look in the technology panel for better what a wide variety of build options, Imagine Earth offers.

[h2]The Takeover Panel[/h2]



We have also redesigned this to make the acquisition of competing cities clearer. With the necessary majority of shares in a corporation, you can directly take over individual cities and bring them under your control.

[h2]Population free areas on the planet[/h2]



When we built the above planet B, we wanted to enable the scenario of finding more cities or soon maybe slums on the planet that could be taken over and transformed in an efficiency and environmentally friendly way. To do this, we first had to create the condition that even in areas not controlled by factions, people live in the cities and are supplied by farms and power plants in the surrounding area.

[h2]Gamepad - Major changes[/h2]

• We have once again intensively rethought and optimized the gamepad controls for Imagine Earth. It should be almost more dynamic to control than with the mouse, give it a try.
  [Digitalpad controls the main UI elements: Tree menu, resources, building list, trader menu.
  [Left shoulder: research, tech, stocks
  [Right shoulder: city navigation
  
• Select & Start: Navigation, game menu, journal, statistics
  
• Therefore no more additional menüring
  
• Significantly more overlays directly in the UI
  

[h2]More optimizations and fixes[/h2]

• Dialogs no longer overlay pause screens and other panels that pause the game.
  
• Improved Storytelling - First entry in planetary journal reports that no story has yet taken place on untouched planets.
  
• Bora Mission - Added direct rebuild target for city centers.
  
• Unintended city placement basically disabled.
  
• Jump to cities - buildings no longer appear with delay
  
• Midras merchant, permanent icon is out of the game
  

[h2]Please vote for us in the Player's Choice Award[/h2]



The Green Game Jam has started! Many game studios have launched Green Activations to save the planet's most important habitats, and so have we. If you click on the image, you will be taken to Imagine Earth's contest page and you can support our project in this jam.

• Improved AI behaviour in serious mode, by relying less on resource harvesting and trade
  
• Fixed re-sell pricing of landing permits and tech licenses
  
• Doubled self-cleaning time of Xrathul pollution
  
• Fixed Magni Xrathul pest clean-up goal not working anymore when all pollution is gone
  
• Display remaining time for Xrathul pollution
  
• Fixed campaign completion not considering Omicron Persei 9 and thus showing more than 100% completion
  
• Fixed UI overlap bug in highscore
  
• Fixed research queue endless loop related to construct licenses
  
• Fixed some links to external websites not properly opening when clicked
  
• Fixed game asking for review again
  
• Fixed target values for competition achievements in Steam UI
  
• Fixed remaining graphic issues of frontier buoy
  
• Fixed great illumati pyramid being plunderable and destructable at the same time
  

Many thanks to i-dot, John-Red, Azylaans, Wingheart and booiiing