Power UP! Madeira was a semester-long project involving extensive research. The goal of the project was to build an interactive multiuser exhibit for Casa da Luz, Madeira’s museum about science, electricity, and power generation. Our solution was an RTS in which players manage their own resources (Money and Electricity) in order to build the island’s shared network of power stations. The major challenge is in balancing renewable energy, which is clean and cost-effective after construction but expensive to build and unreliable, with conventional natural gas power, which is cheap to build and reliable but generates pollution and costs money to supply.
Our resulting four player game, built on a handmade touchscreen, is a resource management simulation in which money, public satisfaction, pollution, and electricity must be balanced to meet the needs of a demanding populace with diverse needs.