Salotti_2001abstr MARSBASE, AN EDUCATIONAL SIMULATION GAME Marc Salotti French Chapter of the Mars Societymarc.salotti@wanadoo.fr  Is it really possible to build a base on Mars and to achieve self-sufficiency? This problem has been addressed by several researchers, among them Zubrin in his plan to settle the red planet and science fiction writers such as Robinson. In order to get a better understanding of the basic requirements of such a project, a user-friendly simulator has been developed. However, the aim is not to propose a technical study. It is instead an educational game showing the main technological breakthroughs allowing long stays on the surface of Mars. The user faces a satellite image of Mars and commands the astronauts. They can walk on the surface, drive a rover, extract ores, transform hydrogen and carbon dioxide in propellant, build a greenhouse, do farming, and so on. A user-friendly interface has been developed. The simulation looks like other well-known simulation games, as for example Age of Empires or Simcity. In its current version, the game is playable but only a few scenarios are available.

 

The first draft of the project has been presented in the previous Mars Society convention. A number of modifications have been made and new concepts have been implemented. The aim of this paper is to present the main parts of the game. It is divided into three parts. In the first one, we present the first panel of the game that makes it possible to choose all objects being sent to Mars. In the second part, we present the different actions that are available to the user. In the last part, we discuss the different scenarios and the perspectives of the game.