project blurb draft

[Eli Dupree]

What is energy, and where does the energy we use come from? How do we gather and process materials, and what effects does that have on the planet we live on?

The Lasercake project aims to help people understand these things through the powerful medium of computer games.

In Lasercake (the game), the player can use robots to build industrial projects - but unlike in similar games, every part of the world is based on real-life science. Mine waste has to be dumped somewhere and causes pollution. Energy is conserved. Solar panels, wind turbines, and so on, reflect the
possible efficiency of those sources as understood by today's science. In short, we plan to include any and all scientific concepts that we can include while still keeping the game fun and engaging.

Most of those things don't exist yet - the game is far from complete - but we have a prototype showing some of the things we've done already.

We want to make awesome things free to everyone. Anyone with an Internet connection may download Lasercake and its source code without charge, and anyone with the ability may create and distribute modified versions under the terms of the GNU AGPL.

The current project team is Eli Dupree (of elidupree.com) and Isaac Dupree (of idupree.com). We began this project in December as an experiment in simulating water physics, and it's only kept expanding since.

We want your cool skills! The two of us could do this project on our own, but it will be more awesome if you help us out. There's a lot of different things that go into a big project like Lasercake - art, sustainable design, computer programming, geology, physics, sound design, and many other
things besides. If you want to help, any way is good to contact us: email, Google Group, IRC or GitHub. [these'll be the links from the dwonloads page]

[Isaac Dupree]

On 03/03/2013 08:56 PM, Eli Dupree wrote:
> What is energy, and where does the energy we use come from? How do we
> gather and process materials, and what effects does that have on the
> planet we live on?

Can haz snappier? Hm:

What is energy? Where does the energy we use come from? How do we
gather and process materials? What effects does that have on the planet
we live on?

What is energy; where does the energy we use come from? How do we gather
and process materials; what effects does that have on the planet we live on?

I think I like the version that turns the ",and"s into "?"s. Hmm.
"What is energy" is a strong lead, but also a bit of a mis-lead.
"Energy" means too many things: peppiness, electricity, joules. It
makes me have to go back in my mind, after reading "where does the
energy we use come from?", to use that info to clarify which "energy"
"What is energy" meant.

On second thought: readers have just seen the main page picture. So
"energy" obviously does not mean "peppiness". That helps.

> The Lasercake project aims to help people understand these things
> through the powerful medium of computer games.

Good. LOL at boasting about the power of computer games. (Well hm- The
medium is powerful. Not everyone believes it's powerful. I feel your
wording will make people laugh at it, not think about whether it's true.
It's a good wording nonetheless.)

> In Lasercake (the game), the player can use robots to build industrial
> projects - but unlike in similar games, every part of the world is based
> on real-life science. Mine waste has to be dumped somewhere and causes
> pollution. Energy is conserved. Solar panels, wind turbines, and so on,
> reflect the possible efficiency of those sources as understood by
> today's science. In short, we plan to include any and all scientific
> concepts that we can include while still keeping the game fun and engaging.

The structures of the last two sentences are too complex to keep my
attention focused.

Is it important for the blurb to say we are matching scientific theory
rather than current technology? "reflect the theoretical limits of
today's science". "reflect today's science". "have efficiency based on
science". hrm. The last sentence is probably fine if we can do
something with the second-to-last. "convert energy according to
science". "are science-based". The concept is "theoretical limits on
energy conversion efficiency". If one doesn't have that concept, I
don't think we can make this sentence teach it! Even "energy conversion
efficiency" is a bit much of a concept to convey in this blurb. What to
do, what to do.

> Most of those things don't exist yet - the game is far from complete -
> but we have a prototype showing some of the things we've done already.

Good.

> We want to make awesome things free to everyone. Anyone with an Internet
> connection may download Lasercake and its source code without charge,
> and anyone with the ability may create and distribute modified versions
> under the terms of the GNU AGPL.

Good.

> The current project team is Eli Dupree (of elidupree.com) and Isaac
> Dupree (of idupree.com). We began this project in December as an
> experiment in simulating water physics, and it's only kept expanding since.

Maybe you want to say *which* December.

Will the "of *.com" instead be links on our names for media that support
links?

> We want your cool skills! The two of us could do this project on our
> own, but it will be more awesome if you help us out. There's a lot of
> different things that go into a big project like Lasercake - art,
> sustainable design, computer programming, geology, physics, sound
> design, and many other things besides. If you want to help, any way is
> good to contact us: email, Google Group, IRC or GitHub. [these'll be the
> links from the dwonloads page]

Good.

-Isaac

[Eli Dupree]

New draft (now in markdown). I think for the web we can just have this as its own page with no additions except [Lasercake home] at the bottom. It will also appear in the readme.


Project blurb
=============

What is energy? Where does the energy we use come from? How do we gather and process materials, and what effects does that have on the planet we live on?

The Lasercake project aims to help people understand these things through the powerful medium of computer games.

In Lasercake (the game), the player can use robots to build industrial projects - but unlike in similar games, every part of the world is based on real-life science. Mine waste has to be dumped somewhere and causes pollution. Energy is conserved. Solar panels, wind turbines, and so on, harvest
realistic amounts of energy. In short, we plan to include any and all scientific concepts that we can include while still keeping the game fun and engaging.

Most of those things don't exist yet - the game is far from complete - but we have a prototype showing some of the things we've done already.

We want to make awesome things free to everyone. Anyone with an Internet connection may download Lasercake and its source code without charge, and anyone with the ability may create and distribute modified versions under the terms of the GNU AGPL.

The current project team is [Eli Dupree](http://www.elidupree.com/) and [Isaac Dupree](http://www.idupree.com/). We began this project in December 2011 as an experiment in simulating water physics, and it's only kept expanding since.

We want your cool skills! The two of us could do this project on our own, but it will be more awesome if you help us out. There's a lot of different things that go into a big project like Lasercake - art, sustainable design, computer programming, geology, physics, sound design, and many other

things besides. If you want to help, any way is good to contact us: [email](mailto:lase...@googlegroups.com), [Google Group](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/lasercake), [IRC](https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=lasercake) or [GitHub](https://github.com/Lasercake/Lasercake/issues).