A Permaculture Game? Please

I think that one thing that would really make a huge difference in moving more people to permaculture is a really good GAME.
If there was a simulation type game like the old SimCity games that dealt specifically with permaculture folks could really wrap their heads around it. A huge set of variables and and educational interface would help people stay interested. Starting from the basics and working up to higher levels of complexity would build on knowledge from previous levels. A lovable character and a storyline might be nice too.

In a really advanced game you could import a google map of your favorite places and redesign it in the game to see how it might be different. A way to control weather, pests, disease, mishaps and other variable would be a lot of fun.


Are there any game developers out there that might be interested in something like this? Kind of part simcity, part farmville, all awesome. Something like that... Something kids and adults could grasp.

Wait... isn't Paul a code guy??? He's gotta know somebody that would be good at this. HEY!!! Why No Permaculture game yet? This is overdue.

I've thought about this, and there have been some other threads on the subject and on other sites.

There have been a few games that attempt to simulate some sort of life/agriculture/farming in a way that recalls permaculture. Farmville not one of them. I felt like Waking Mars had some good permaculture feelings to it- you are trying to reboot a failed ecosystem and there are considerations like acid soil, pioneed plants, water, each plant has its own needs and properties. But VASTLY simplified.

But on the whole (Just like SimCity) a simulation can never be a suitable substitute for real life and its fractal, never ending complexity. Someone who learns about permaculture by experimenting with systems in a simulation will be overwhelmed with the dynamism, subtlety, constraints, and indeterminacy of a real landscape.

The first Principle- Observe and Interact. Nothing about "Observe, Make a simulation, Interact with that simulation."

I am passionate about games but the more I've thought about it (for the past couple years), the more I think that games aren't subtle enough to contain permaculture in sufficient complexity to actually be instructive. Maybe as a way to introduce someone to PC ideas, but any exposure they would get would be saddled with antipatterns ingrained in the simulation.

There is a reason why city planning classes don't use SimCity to test theories about urban development.

For what they are, SimCity and Farmville work as simulations insofar as actual cities and farms have been turned into digital artifacts themselves- gridded out, protocolized, and systematized. This makes them much easier to simulate than a semi-wild food forest or silvopasture system.

I don't want to shut down your idea, and I'd LOVE to be proven wrong. Let's discuss this more.

In my opinion the best games are ones that engage on many levels. What I liked about the Sim games was that you had the "god-like POWER" to make it awesome and intricate OR just fuck about with things for a few minutes. I always started out with those type of sandbox games by just messing everything up. Once the amusement of breaking, burning, killing and destroying was fading, I found myself wanting to learn the dynamics of the game. The number of variables made the game infinity experimental. You could make large metropolises or tiny interconnected towns. Then there were the disasters that you could toggle and control. In the learning phase you could disable the monsters and tornadoes and then once you were comfortable you could set them loose on you creation and see how it rebuilds itself.

I also like games that have a storyline. A cute little character with a simple goal of making a pretty yard to play in, grows up to change the whole world over the course of the game.

At first levels could be small like a little garden or a small backyard. As the game goes on you'd be dealing with larger properties with ever complex considerations.


Maybe like this:
Level one:
Goals: Prepare a no till garden bed. Plant a three sisters garden. Harvest "X" pounds of each crop. Chop and drop plant debris and plant cover crop.

Level five:
Goals: Raise layer chickens. Use chickens to incorporate cover crops from previous year, decide what to do with extra eggs. (choices: sell, give, trade, compost, feed to pig, throw at GMO mono-farmers)

Level twenty:
Goals: Design a 100 acre property in temperate wooded southeast faceing slope. Make 250,000 profit in 5 years

Level fifty:
Goals: You've inherited 5000 acres of high desert No way to get a track hoe up there and there's no power or water. (good Luck)

Anyway... you get the idea.

All along you have choices to make about animal stocking density, materials, composting vs chop-n-drop, swales, hugel, ponds BLAH BLAH

So then there's droughts, fires, pests, blights, age, falling trees and changing needs.

It would be nice to have a module where you could randomly generate landscapes and weather conditions so that the play was always original.

I LOVE the idea, and I think you have your levels set reasonably. This could be a fab kickstarter, provided we can get some hungry coders on board (and I don't know if those type of coders were the ones Paul hung out with before he became the Duke of Permaculture, lol). I will be watching this thread in eager anticipation...

I would like to see this take off in any way it can. Anyone who wants to run with it is welcome to do so. I'd be happy to help in anyway I can.

As for my part: I'm an "Idea Guy" I guess. I love brainstorming, problem solving and spit balling. I'm good at pointing out flaws and awesomeness and directing priorities but I've never done anything like game development before. I guess I have a good Idea as to what I would like the end product to be, but have no idea as to how to get there.
My schedule and attention span are limiting factors in why 90% of everything I start is still "a work in progress" but I feel like this type of game could really help advance the education of the younger population. If it's entertaining enough, they won't even know they are learning. Plus, I could always use something else to kill time in the winter. Maybe this will materialize in some way.

Nathan and Craig - you both have a really good idea of what would fly and what wouldn't; you just need some techies to hash it out. It might not be a bad idea to check into your local colleges that offer game development courses (and lots of them do now) to see if the basics might be shaped in a classroom as part of the course curriculum. The students want to get their names attached to a developed game in order to climb the ladder to the big developers (like Bethesda and Blizzard), so an intern approach might work. Everyone gets something out of the deal.

My idea for a permie game would combine video , social networking , and strenuous physical activity . It is a rebirth of the Native American war game of Counting Coup. The permie player would carry a hooked staff made from a wood such as osage orange , yew , or serviceberry. The hooked tip would be painted red . The staff could be decorated with pastured chicken and turkey feathers. The player could perform the feat on horseback , on foot , or extra bonus points for riding donkey or goat. The target "player" would be a Monsanto executive , GMO bioengineer , or USDA bureaucrat etc. The object of the game would be for the permie player to rush the target player , tap them on both shoulders with the staff { gently of course } and steal either their toupee or Blackberry. This would have to be videotaped and posted on YouTube to count. The permie player would have enhanced status within the permie community by wearing a belt decorated by Blackberrys and toupees . Each spring the contestants would gather at a prescribed location and the booty and videos would be judged by the permie community. The feats would be judged on aspects such as choreography , difficulty , courage , and bravado. The target players would also be invited to the spring gathering . There the booty would be returned to them . They would be served a meal of grass fed steaks , sunchokes , and stinging nettles. To recieve their personal property they would be required to watch a Geof Lawton video . All players - permie or target - would be eligible for a drawing to win a PDC. Good times would be had by all.

I've thought about this quite a bit. I've never seen a game that touches on the complexity and ingenuity of permaculture. I would play a game like that.

I imagine a game with 'it depends' as it's central precept potentially being a pretty frustrating experience!

So there really are an infinite number of ways you could make a permaculture game. I suppose it really has to do with how complex you want it and what type of games you like. I've thought of everything from a board game similar to "LIFE" where luck of the draw kind of guides the play. I've thought about it in a Platform type (think original Mario bros.) where the goal is to complete levels of varying difficulty. I also like the idea of an RPG either card based or in video game format.

One of my particular ideas was to a story line where, as the main character completes "permaculture quests" the landscape all around him/her develops into a permaculture haven that takes over the whole of the land and sea. You start out as a young poor
"dirt farmer" who, despite his efforts, has failed the land and goes off in search of new life in the city. On your journey you meet a wise man who directs you from there to your first "quest/lesson". A simple task begins you down a road with many choices and much to learn.

Anyway... this could go in a thousand directions.

When I was taking my Permaculture Teacher's Training, we made a game that was for a group (it was really roots and not sure what happened to the parts of it), but it went like this:

The Intro class split up into 5 or 6 groups, and each group was given a piece of paper with a village drawn on it, that listed the resources that they had, a project/event that they needed to achieve, and a list of resources that they needed to acquire to make the project/event work.

Then they needed to come up with a technique as a team to trading with the other villages to get what they needed. Sometimes they needed to trade with one village to get what they needed from another one.

At the end people saw the benefit of currency and we explored through a discussion the topic of alternative currency, how to value it fairly, and why it is an important step after trade. (though not better than trade, rather good for making trade easier)

It was so fun, I would love to see more permaculture games, both digital and physical. It is a valuable resource for facilitators and often roots concepts deep into people's understanding. I highly recommend games as teaching aids.

Thanks for the posts,
Alana Bliss

Hello friends,

I currently am developing a multiplayer Permaculture sim. I haven't announced it to anyone else at this point, as I am still in the prototyping phase, but since you are already interested I thought I'd let you be the first to hear of it.

The game is a multiplayer experience. A single user can start her farm, but I encourage her to create avatars for herself as well as the friends and family who she would like to see living on the farm. These characters are then used to create and operate the farm. She can then invite her friends and family to come play their characters. Just as in real life, it gets easier with more hands. Throughout the experience, I am encouraging the players to consider how much more powerful they would be if they were to join together in real life and play the game for real.

The game takes place at an accelerated pace, with a day of real time equaling month of game time. The single player experience, sandbox mode, can be played at the users own pace.

Ultimately I am focusing on simulation over simplification. There will be dynamic water, which can be utilized by deforming terrain. Soil fertility will vary, and can be built up or lost depending upon usage, runoff, etc. Players will have the options to make what I would consider "bad choices," and the local soil, bee and bird population, and human health will be affected. I will implement day/night cycles as well as phases of the moon. Players can build structures which will need heating and cooling depending on their designs, and have options for how they buy or create power.

At this point I am at an early prototyping phase. I have a farmer walking around, seeds that can be picked up and planted, and plants that grow and can be harvested. All of these are early in development. For instance the plants don't grow naturally, they appear fully formed, with fruit, but tiny. They are then scaled up until they reach full size. Plant and tree growth is one of the few systems that are going to have to be invented from the ground up, as they don't exist already in a format that I can license.

I am building the game in the Unity game engine, which has taken hold as the way to create games quickly and with small teams, and is even being noticed by the big players now. http://unity3d.com I just returned from the Unite 2013 convention, where I licensed Mixamo All Access for a year. http://www.mixamo.com I have also licensed a water simulation, land deformation, farm animal models, vegetables, day and night cycles, phases of the moon, various code, a GUI system, and much more. So far I'm into it a few thousand dollars, which in Unity terms equates to a few tens of thousands if it were being done with contractors, or close to one hundred thousand if you take into account Mixamo and the full time modellers and animators I would have had to hire.

I am going with the "release early and release often" mantra. Once I have a playable game, meaning plant, tend, harvest, sell, buy more to plant, I'll do a limited release to see what people think. After that, I will begin adding in the simulation, piece by piece, day by day.

Well that's a basic rundown, I need to go check on the eggplants in my hugelkulture in real life, then get back to working on the game.

Thanks for taking time to read this!

Victor

Great ! I can't wait to see what you've come up with. Please keep the forum up to date on your project and good luck with your eggplant.

I will keep you updated, and thanks for being interested!

hah, I just came up with idea as well. Great minds I would be interested in helping somehow. I am a graphic designer and can do a few programs. I also have connections to other people of various skills. I have only worked with the Hero engine thus far.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for replying. I am about to head out to Tracker School for 3 weeks, so I will message you directly when I get back. In the meantime, I suggest to everyone interested in game creation, whether it's with me or others, to pick up Unity and get familiar with it. EA, Disney, all the casino game producers, and who knows who else were at Unite 2013, the Unity engine conference, last week. Knowing how to use it is going to be a marketable skill for quite a long time.

As I near my early prototype, I'll start spreading the load a bit with specific tasks, and get contributors set up on version control. If you like to message me with your skills and skill levels, that will help me.

For those who already use Unity, I'm currently using NGUI, Playmaker, Skyshop, UnityCar Pro (for tractors,) and Fluvio2 (for water,) and anyone with licenses and skill in them please let me know.

In the meantime, the best name I have had suggested for the game so far, in my view, is "Sustainaville," but for anyone that doesn't mind me using their name idea, I'd be interested in hearing it. Prior, I had been toying with The Ecovillage, Let's Be A Tribe, and Cooperate and Live, but all of these are meh. What do you all think?

Thanks,

Victor

I'd love to go with the permi-version on MONO-poly for POLY-opoly. Where you'd add layers of permi stuff & start with a piece of cut-over or abandoned gravel pit etc and rather than money. barter with what you have plenty of or even sit out for a round to "volunteer" on someone else's farm to acquire stuff for your quest.

When I think of a permaculture "board game" I think more along the lines of "LIFE" than "Monopoly". While the goal of both games is to be the richest at the end, LIFE is mostly governed by luck of the draw and the spin of the wheel, while Monopoly is more strategic and goes on until one person is essentially "Ruler" of the board. In LIFE you are on your own track which rarely interferes with the other players. Monopoly is all about pitting players and their money against one another to see who can make it to the top of the heap first. And then they have to hang onto that spot til everyone else is bankrupt.

I like playing both games but let's face it, Monopoly can go on for too long and it's especially long if you're constantly on the brink of flipping the board over cuz uncle Jon is being a dick about Park Place and it's stupid little hotel.

So it looks like there's interest in both a video game and a board game. I'm not a programmer but I like to spend a few hours now and then playing games and would relish the opportunity to play/test any version of a game that gets created. I feel like I can be a fair critic so please share and share often. I think that a good permacuture game would really help spread the word. Anything I can do to aid that process... let me know.

As far as board game goes, I think I'm going to look at some of the games that I have and see what elements might work together in a permaculture friendly sort of way. Perhaps I'll cobble something together this week. It's supposed to rain a bunch and I'm in search of a good rainy day project.

Monopoly.... the game that our society has been playing for real for over 100 years, at least. The problem is that at the end of Monopoly, everything goes back in the box and we start from scratch next time. Imagine if, instead, it was like real life. Next time you play, set it up just as it was at the end, and keep running around the board. The person who owns everything already loves it, everyone else wants to pull their hair out as they go further and further in debt. Then add in some gambling for the bank, which is run by the top player, but make sure that that player can never actually lose the big bet that would reset things. Fun game.

My favorite board game modification is one I did with Settlers of Catan. Feeling that humanity has it all wrong, I started recording how many points were scored at the end of a four player Catan game, and what turn that happened on. The average point total was 27, I'd have to consult my notes to remember what turn it usually ends.

After a while, I convinced some friends to play the game cooperatively, with the goal being to hit a total of 35 points in the same number of turns. It always happened, with us going over that total sometimes, even with relatively new players. So the cooperative economy was always 25% more powerful. I've been going around trying to convince people to cooperate in real life, ever since.

Should make another game called Monsanto that plays like monopoly and monsanto controls the whole board from the beginning of the game.

anthony coffee wrote:Should make another game called Monsanto that plays like monopoly and monsanto controls the whole board from the beginning of the game.

You could make this only six spaces long. Roll one die and then move that number of spaces.

Every space says "F*&K you, eat shit, go home, you lose!

Then just put the game away while the maker of the game repossesses your actual real life house though a loophole you unwittingly bound yourself to by purchasing the game.

You can't win unless you don't play.

Might make a nice novelty gift.

Can't help but imagine Minecraft with more growies and critters. I find this sort of thing very engrossing: http://orteil.dashnet.org/nested

So no one else grew up playing sim farm sim ant and sim earth, huh?

I had an idea for a Permaculture game. Not a Permaculture video game. A Permaculture board game.

The premise would be something along these lines:

Players:
2 to 4

Age (target audience):
~5 to elderly

Goal:
be the first to get 100 "yield" points and win the game

Game Board:
The underlying board game would be similar to the hexagonal cardboard pieces of Settlers of Catan. Each hexagonal board piece would represent an environmental land type: mountain, desert, open plains, tropics, savanah, tundra, etc.

The hexagonal board pieces would be randomly setup every time the game is played. Thus, the environmental setup is different every time.

Game Pieces:
Each player would have an wofati or Earthship game piece that they would place on the selected land. In the center of the piece, not like on the edges in Setters of Catan.

Pre-game setup and trade:
A player then gets to roll a die and gets all the plants in the quantified number of the 7 layers.
(eg, i would roll a 3 and I would get: soil layer, shrub layer, and root layer)
Note: canopy layer can only be grow and not rolled

The next time I roll the die I would get animals of the different animal kingdoms
(eg, i would roll a 4 and I would get: fungi, insects, reptiles, amphibians)

you would have nice little cards with graphical representation for each layer and animal kingdom. You would also have a reference card that would list all the layers and animal kingdoms cards you would need.

Location/environment selection:
Based on my rolls for layers and animals I must choose an environment that would best suit chances of obtain a yield.
(Note: I still don't have all the logic for this worked out in my head, suggestions welcome)
I would want to give a additional layer or animal bonus acquisition if certain combinations occurred, like: desert-insects-root layer; or soil layer-open plans-fungi

Game Play:
Each player will take turns rolling the die (clockwise or counter clockwise)
Rolling the die will give seasonal rains
With each seasonal rain you can get an additional layer or animal card
The specific environment types will have rain multipliers (eg, I rolled a 2, and everyone on the game board will get 2 rain units but the person in the desert only get 2 and the person in the mountains gets 2x2 or 4 units)

If you have all 7 layers and all the animals kingdoms then you start get get "yield" points from the land proportional to the rain units.

To "level" the playing field every 10 turns winter comes. Winter would last 10 turns during which mountains, plains, and other environment types no longer get yields, but the desert does.


-Somehow need to incorporate zones into game play-

Thinking of having special attributes for edges where the game board tiles meet.

At every 10 turns during the season change, a special red die is rolled. roll a 1 to 3 and you get a positive card; roll a 4 to 6 and you get a negative card.

Positive cards: (give you additional yield points)
Double harvest
Donated land
Rain water capture
Hugelkultur
Sheet mulching
Rotational grazing

Negative cards: (take away yield points)
drought
fire
locust swarm
plant disease
animal disease


That is the basic jist of the game. Suggestions? Comments? Would anyone be interested in playing such a game?
Thanks

This sounds like a well thought out idea and I'd like to see you develop it further. I like the idea of "yield points". Allowing player to set a score limit would be a good way of controlling the length of play. Quick games to 100 points or a marathon game to 10,000 points.
You could develop this on a basic level and then make expansion packs of cards to add more dynamics to the game.

I like the idea of a board game too. I'll mill this one over a bit and see if I have anything positive to add. I'm curious though... Where does the compatition come in though? In my (extensive) experience Board games are no fun unless you can scream "fuck you, you bastard - I'm invading poland!" But I play games with friends not family.


EDIT: Has anyone else here played the "civilization" board game based on Sid Myers computer games? That may be good reference material

Edit 2: I would totally be willing to volunteer time play testing any permaculture board game even if invading poland turns out not to be an option

Perhaps you could incorporate zones based on terrain?

Ie - you get dealt 'crop card' and certain crops get certain bonuses like vines yield +1 in forests. and orchard on the 'edge' of forest/plains yields +1

Where I'm going with this is getting multiple bonuses with appropriatly stacking synergistic cards onto a single space. so that one could get +1+2+9 bonus yield points on a single terrain

Everyone starts with a zone Zero farm house but there is only so much terrain so soon enough....

FUCK YOU! I've got dealt barley and I'm invaiding you're plains!

Unless you get smart about stacking and trading seed/livestock

I bring up the CIV game, because of it's resource trading and monopoly rules

EDIT: What if you had to cooperatively work towards like 10000 points, but the game was really hard - so everyone could still get all stressed with each other trying to figure out the best way to do it? Just tossin out ideas

Landon: I like that idea. It seems like things could get pretty complex. I guess that's the whole point when it comes to permaculture right?

I think I see room here for TWO types of board games.

1. Something similar to the game of life. It won't take a long time to learn or play and it would be simple enough for young player to be involved.

2. A game more like Civilization. A turn based strategy game for older kids and adults that would take a long time to play, learn and master. I like the hexagonal layout idea. I can see a few different ways of using that idea to make a terrain surface that could be "transformed" during play. A player could use accumulated points to swap adjacent tiles in order to do earthworks. You could then add a layer such that a player couldn't have a food forest unless there is a swale and water present. In order to advance, the player has to move tiles and build a swale.

I would like to see development in both of those game areas. Each one has a particular niche of players that it would attract and there is room to pack a lot of permaculture learning into both game formats to reach lots of new people.

I just bought the new version of LIFE in the hopes that it'll spark some ideas. I looked through the box and found that it's a lot more complex and developed than the game I played when I was a kid. Still seems simple enough and looks like a good basic model for a permaculture game base. I'd rather use dice than a spinning "wheel of fortune" though. Little kids are not good with a spinner and they break too easily.

I've seen Agricola in a local shop, maybe I'll pick it up one of these days and see how permaculture-y it is.

I just looked at the board game Agricola. I was thinking something similar to their release mentality. I was thinking that there could be a base version of the Permies board game and then later release expansion packs (additional features and synergistic attributes) that would increase complexity.

Wow, your project looks great! We're making a permaculture inspired game (with quite a different focus) called SEEDS: The Game. Check us out! We're at www.seedsthegame.com . Our focus is more on heirloom and landrace species, and minigames as opposed to full on garden simulators, but maybe we could collaborate and cross-pollinate!

Hello Nick,

It looks like you and your team are really moving fast on the mobile game app. I have to admit my game idea has been progressing at a much slower pace. I did some work on the logic of the game play the other day but not much since then. I have some other items on my TODO list that are higher priority. I hope your app keeps up the pace.

I love this thread! I would love a game - mostly a board game - and have thought about how it might work. Funny that the game "Civilization" was mentioned as that what kind of along the lines I was thinking as well. I will have to check out Settlers of Catan - looks interesting.

I'd love to be involved with designing and testing a game. It seems there are some really good thought processes already going on.

One thing I, personally, would like to see is not just "one site" design but addressing of some of the larger issues that permaculture seeks to put back into a sustainable or, preferably, a regenerative state. According to Geoff Lawton, the biggest problem we face at this point in time is soil erosion, then access to clean water, then distantly, pollution. For me, its not enough to say permaculture is about growing one's own food and "living sustainably", because in the end, while you may have a wonderful place, it may or may not have a larger impact. I get that this might be a topic for a higher game level and maybe folks start off by building up their own property and getting extra points if they also build X amount of soil by taking in organic waste from the local supermarket and tree trimmer, etc.

Anyway - awesome ideas going on here. Keep 'em coming.

The way we're trying to address things like that, Jennifer, is to create a suite of minigames that each tackle different aspects of permaculture or sustainability. All of them will be tied together through a rewards system and real-world challenges in our SEEDS platform. We're currently building out a plant-stacking tetris type game where guild thinking and companion planting determine score multipliers, as well as a soil building game, a water "find it, store it, move it, clean it, use it" game, a pollinator game, and a pest management/tower defense game. We won't launch all of them at the same time, but the idea is to utilize the most addictive gaming mechanics out there to subtly train people on permaculture principles.

We're also building in a challenge system to get people to actually go outside and meaningfully interact with each other and their environment if they want to earn real life prizes.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, drop us a line!

Nick Heyming wrote:The way we're trying to address things like that, Jennifer, is to create a suite of minigames that each tackle different aspects of permaculture or sustainability. All of them will be tied together through a rewards system and real-world challenges in our SEEDS platform. We're currently building out a plant-stacking tetris type game where guild thinking and companion planting determine score multipliers, as well as a soil building game, a water "find it, store it, move it, clean it, use it" game, a pollinator game, and a pest management/tower defense game. We won't launch all of them at the same time, but the idea is to utilize the most addictive gaming mechanics out there to subtly train people on permaculture principles.

We're also building in a challenge system to get people to actually go outside and meaningfully interact with each other and their environment if they want to earn real life prizes.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, drop us a line!

Sounds great! Can you explain more how this integrates into a real-world challenges? Getting people up and doing is the tough part I suspect. How have you chosen to tackle this challenge?

Well, we've been working on that for some time. We're going to limit how much people can progress through the minigames before they get cut off. Many social media games employ a similar tact, where they cut their players off after 15 minutes or so each day. In most cases, that is when they give their players an opportunity to advance by 'gifting' or 'sharing' virtual goods with their social networks - free marketing for the app, but obnoxious to the recipients of this spam.

In our case, we're going to have people cut off after so much time (or at least stop their advancement to more difficult virtual challenges) unless they go outside and actually do something in real life. As simple as checking in at a park or farmers market, maybe taking a picture of a flower, or their nursery, or an interesting fruit. Then, they have the option to share the picture or check-in with their friends and family, and instead of just spamming them with worthless game invites, they're actually showing them something they did in real life.

We're hoping that overcomes the 'invite fatigue' many people experience. We're also tying our currency to the number of 'likes' that our players get (controlling for bots and gaming the system), so they're encouraged to do things that their friends and family are actually proud of.

We'll see how it works, we're still working on the back end right now, getting all the databases and APIs to play nice with each other. We're still taking on investors and contributors.

I haven't read the entire thread - but one migh do a minecraft mod? Like if you do companion planting or rotate your animals you get a higher chance of higher yield?

I also look forward to a online SimFarm/ SimCity style permaculture game.

For a "board game" version, you could just fill a large box with sand like a zen rock garden. You could then grade the slope and add swales, ponds, plants, and live stock to replicate potential design plans. It could be a great design tool. Generals have been drawing battle plans in the dirt for centuries.

Just thinking about a way to use the Permaculture Playing Cards for games other than typical card games.
I wonder if the layout of the deck is formulated in such a way as to develop a...