''Project Eagle'' is an interactive art demo of a colony on
Mars, developed by
Blackbird Interactive in collaboration with
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was released on
Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
on 27 November 2018, in honor of the successful ''
InSight'' landing.
Production
''Project Eagle'' was built in the
Unity (Game Engine) and utilizes design elements similar to that of the
RTS
RTS may refer to:
Medicine
* Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim
* Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma
* Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...
game ''
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak'', including the sensors manager view and camera systems.
The Martian terrain was generated using
radar data from NASA's
HiRISE camera on board the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
''Project Eagle'' is set in 2117 in a hypothetical future after the first human colonists arrive on Mars in the year 2034 The fictional "Eagle Base" is located at the foot of
Mount Sharp
Mount Sharp, officially Aeolis Mons (), is a mountain on Mars. It forms the central peak within Gale (crater), Gale crater and is located around , rising high from the valley floor. Its ID in the United States Geological Survey's Gazetteer of ...
(Aeolis Mons), in Quad 51 of
Aeolis Palus
Aeolis Palus is a plain between the northern wall of Gale crater and the northern foothills of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) on Mars. It is located at .
The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission landed the ''Curiosity'' rover on Aeolis Palus in Aug ...
in
Gale Crater, near the site of the
''Curiosity'' rover landing. The ''Curiosity'' landing site is marked with a
plinth in ''Project Eagle''.
2017 D.I.C.E. Summit
''Project Eagle'' was presented on stage at D.I.C.E. 2017 by NASA’s Dr. Jeff Norris, and BBI’s CEO Rob Cunningham and CCO Aaron Kambeitz. The talk took place directly after the conference keynote speech by
Jeffrey Kaplan from
Blizzard Entertainment. There, Jeff Norris said: "We wanted to publicly exhibit a project that shows what this medium could do for inspiring space exploration".
[{{cite web, last=Tach , first=Dave , url=http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/24/14726284/nasa-video-games-space , title=Video games can and should inspire entire societies to do better , publisher=Polygon , date=2017-02-24 , accessdate=2017-03-22]
References
Colonization of Mars
Interactive art