Graeme Ing Popular Books
Graeme Ing Biography & Facts
Utopia: The Creation of a Nation is a strategy video game. It was developed by Celestial Software and published by Gremlin Graphics (later known as Gremlin Interactive), in 1991 for Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS. It was later released for the Super NES in 1993, by Jaleco in the USA. This release made use of the Super NES Mouse peripheral. Gameplay The game, taking place in the future, on a new planet, is open-ended where the player character is a planetary governor who evacuated his colony after it was hit by a biological weapon by an alien race. Instead of being reprimanded or fired, the governor is lauded for his care of colonists' lives over material gain, and promoted to a series of pioneer worlds to colonize. It is the player's task to colonize the new planet, manage the colony and raise the quality of life for the citizen in order to reach utopia. Initially the player has a few colonists with a lot to do. The player needs to build everything from scratch. Building takes time and free colonists, in addition to money. Buildings under construction are depicted by scaffold. Certain buildings require personnel (hospitals, labs, mines, factories, shipyards ...) and therefore the player has to engage in population management. The player also has to micromanage features such as tax rate, birth rate and trade. In addition, each world also has a competing alien race which is trying to colonize the same planet. There is no option to form alliances, which means that the player's population must come into conflict with the aliens. The player never actually gets to see the alien city, as it is located outside the playable map, but must instead rely on espionage to find out what the aliens and their city look like. It is possible to completely eradicate the alien race, after which the game loses its combat aspect and becomes a pure management simulation. Scenarios Utopia includes ten scenarios, all with a different planet and a different alien race. The scenarios are named according to the alien races in the Amiga version and according to the planets in the SNES port: Eldorians (Rhendor IV) Vroarscans (Alpha Ceti) Soomanii (Vega III) Kal-Kriken (Astoria II) Catalytes (Benezar IV) Squiz-Quijy (Antares III) Pascalenes (Rukbat III) Tilikanthua (Betazan II) Vanacancia (Merak VI) Lucratians (Gamma Lucra) A data disk called Utopia: The New Worlds was later released by Gremlin. This disk required the original Utopia and could not be played as a stand-alone game. It included the following scenarios: Foralbo Parillatians Chevanno Old-Worlders Sarturians Sal-Kadeem Rako-Gorda Key-Guardians Darjakr'Ul Temarkians The "Old-Worlders" were said to be humans, coming from Earth's earlier attempt to colonize the same planet. In practice, they were handled just as another hostile alien race. The terrain of the Sal-Kadeem planet was unique in that it was mostly covered with silver-colored oil that was impossible to build on. Buildings were restricted to tiny patches of habitable land. Bugs It is possible to build Fusion Cruisers before they have been invented. In addition, this way they are free of cost, and only take one month to build. This can be done simply by clicking the empty space (where the Fusion Cruiser will appear when it has been invented) in the ship selection menu. If the player accesses a ship's control panel while the ship is launching, the ship will keep launching perpetually. This happens even if the player exits the panel immediately without giving the ship any orders. The ship will fly off the top of the screen and reappear at the bottom, corrupting the graphics and perhaps eventually crashing the game. Notes One of the four available background musics in Utopia is Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D, a classical melody. Utopia can handle a maximum of 256 buildings, 100 tanks and 40 spaceships at one time. Trying to build any more results in a message that simply says more cannot be built "yet", but there is no apparent limit to the number of buildings in the SNES version. Development The Amiga version of Utopia began development in September 1990, and was released in September 1991. British gaming magazine The One interviewed Graeme Ing and Robert Crack, the designers of Utopia, for information regarding its development in a pre-release interview. Work on Utopia began after the completion of Spacewrecked: 14 Billion Light Years From Earth, and was inspired by Sim City. According to Ing, Utopia was conceived around the idea of how Sim City could be improved upon. The main differentiating design choice was to have a 'more involved' social model, rather than center Utopia's gameplay around the city-building aspect. Ing notes Utopia's hybridized mode of gameplay, noting Utopia's combat, and greater involvement in the development of technology that the player can use, but expresses that he "[doesn't] think the actual simulation is as deep as Sim City ... All sorts of interesting factors were incorporated there. Instead, we've gone for the fun aspect". The option to automate trading was added due to Ing and Crack's belief that Utopia's trading and resource management aspect 'won't appeal to everybody'. Utopia's alien environments were partially inspired by science fiction novels. Each alien race has differing AI routines, but the level of detail put into their development was limited by memory restrictions, with Ing expressing that "it's a trade-off really. You can't go completely overboard because the more intelligence you put in, the slower the gameplay. You've got to balance the two". A user-friendly UI was an important aspect in Utopia's development, and Ing expresses that "nothing annoys me more than a product which is graphically good but in which it's difficult for the player to grasp the controls. That's why from the word go I'm always thinking about making everything as easy as possible to use". Utopia's graphics were created in DPaint. Expansion disks for Utopia were being considered by Gremlin prior to Utopia's release, due to the project 'seeming promising'. Ing states that he holds a design philosophy of making lists to organize a game's design prior to its development, stating that "first we generated a massive spec. It's about 100 pages long and details absolutely everything that needs to be done. Then what I always do is make a list of every single piece of code that needs to be written to make that spec. possible and work my way slowly though the list. Eventually it gets shorter". A fully functional map screen was prioritized as the first part of Utopia to be programmed, and Ing states that "we created some temporary graphics for the buildings and then I worked on all the routines necessary to scroll around the world and select those buildings". At this stage in development, Utopia lacked an isometric perspective, and the map screen was instead in 2D graphics. Ing expresses in regards to this design change that "halfway through what was going to be a 2D sim we de.... Discover the Graeme Ing popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Graeme Ing books.
Best Seller Graeme Ing Books of 2024
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The Helpline
Katherine ColletteAn eccentric woman who is great with numbersbut not so great with peoplerealizes it’s up to her to pull a community together in this charming, bighearted, “fun read, full of unique...
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Shock Therapy
Varlam ShalamovMerzlakov, once a robust stablehand, now fights hunger, pain and exhaustion after a year and a half at a labour camp. An enormous man given little food, he sees the larger men dyin...
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Me You Us
Aaron KaroIn a hilarious comedy of errors that Booklist has dubbed “a good choice for fans of John Green,” high school matchmaker Shane Chambliss is content finding love for his classmatesun...
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Something Wilder
Christina LaurenThe “reigning romance queens” (PopSugar) and New York Times bestselling authors of The Soulmate Equation and The Unhoneymooners present a charming and laughoutloud funny novel fill...
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The Soulmate Equation
Christina LaurenINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“Writing duo and reigning romance queens Christina Lauren are back with The Soulmate Equation, their most ambitious book to date.” PopSugar“A sexy...
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A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
James Boswell, Samuel Johnson & Peter LeviBook by Samuel Johnson, published in 1775. The Journey was the result of a threemonth trip to Scotland that Johnson took with James Boswell in 1773. It contains Johnson's descripti...
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Fancy Frenchies
Ebury PublishingThe funniest French Bulldogs in costumes from around the world, captured for pawsterity.Meet BATBULL, FRENCHIE THE POOH, SNOOP FRENCHIE FRENCH and many, many more mostly stylish, a...
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When We Were Vikings
Andrew David MacDonaldIndie Next Pick for February 2020 Book of the Month January 2020 LibraryReads January 2020 Pick Bookreporter New Release Spotlight New York Post “Best Books of the Week” Goodreads ...
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Lily and the Octopus
Steven RowleyA national bestseller combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, “Lily and the Octopus is the dog book you must read ...
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Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments
Hema SukumarA Red magazine book of 2023'The most charming, utterly lovely story I've read in ages... this is one of my books of the year' RED 'This joyous novel is a feast for the senses, as w...
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Where Demons Hide
Douglas Skelton"Fastpaced and straight to the pointlike a wellaimed literary projectile"Times Scotland Set amid the dramatic beauty of the Scottish Highlands and threaded with Highland histo...
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Petersburg
Andrei Bely & David McDuffAndrei Bely's Petersburg is a colourful evocation of Russia's capital during the short, turbulent period of the first socialist revolution in 1905. Considered Bely's masterpiece, t...
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Pub Walks in Underhill Country
Nat SegnitPub Walks in Underhill Country by Nat Segnit is a cunning, hilarious and heartbreaking novel that takes the form of a guide for walkers but is really a whole lot more . . . 'Start ...
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Tono-Bungay
H.G. WellsPresented as a miraculous cureall, TonoBungay is in fact nothing other than a pleasanttasting liquid with no positive effects. Nonetheless, when the young George Ponderevo is emplo...
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The Heart of Henry Quantum
Pepper HardingIn the bestselling tradition of A Man Called Ove and the beloved film Love Actually comes a quirky, “winsome tale of an unexpected love triangle late in life” (Publishers Weekly) b...
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Arm-ball to Zooter
Lawrence BoothWhat's the difference between short leg and deep midwicket? When would you be thinking about bowling a yorker? What's so great about the sound of leather on willow? Cricket’s vocab...
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The Wee Book of Calvin
Bill DuncanA collection of essays and aphorisms about Scottish Calvinism. This is Scottish literary humour at its finest.'A work of contemporary shamanism, with all the bluff, poetry, derange...
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The Stornoway Way
Kevin Macneil‘Fk everyone from Holden Caulfield to Bridget Jones, fk all the American and English phoney fictions that claim to speak for us; they don’t know the likes of us exist and they neve...
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Home Truths
David WilliamsonThe revealing and candid memoir of Australia's legendary playwright and screenwriter The definitive memoir of David Williamson, author of iconic dramas such as The Removalists,...
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Population, Migration and Settlement in Australia and the Asia-Pacific
Natascha Klocker & Olivia DunThe chapters in this book reflect on the work of seminal Australian geographer, the late Professor Graeme Hugo. Graeme Hugo was widely respected because of his impressive contribut...
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How Champions Think
Bob RotellaAmerica’s preeminent sports psychologist delivers a groundbreaking guide to success in all aspects of lifenot just sportsfrom business to relationships to personal challenges of ev...
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Law and Legacy in Medical Jurisprudence
Edward S. Dove & Niamh Nic ShuibhneGraeme Laurie stepped down from the Chair in Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. This edited collection pays tribute to his extraordinary contributions to...
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Pleasure Hunt
Sophie DansonParis. City of Passion. From elegant hotels to squalid alleyways, Olympia Deschamps pursues her goal: to become accepted into the Legion D' Amour, exclusive society of libertin...
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What Milo Saw
Virginia MacgregorPrepare to fall in love 'A future classic' Clare Mackintosh'We were hooked . . . Brilliant!' Heat 'Have a box of tissues at the ready' Daily Express'A lifeaffirming read' Good Hous...
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All the Little Bird-Hearts
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow“A poetic debut which masterfully intertwines themes of familial love, friendship, class, prejudice and trauma with psychological acuity and wit.” ─ The 2023 Booker Prize Judg...
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A Taste for Love
Marita Conlon-McKennaAlice loves to cook. She believes the secret of good food is to cook with passion. Her love affair with cookery has taken her from her parents' seaside hotel, to Paris and then one...
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Thirty-One Bones
Morgan CryCarl Hiaasen meets Tartan Noir in this comic crime caper set on the sunny Costa Blanca.What Carl Hiaasen does for Florida and Elmore Leonard did for LA, Morgan Cry does for Spain's...
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Tasty High Protein
Fraser ReynoldsFussfree, filling and slimming food that everyone will lovePE teacher turned qualified nutrition coach, Fraser Reynolds is on a mission to prove that a diet doesn't have to be blan...
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Flight or Fright
Stephen King#1 New York Times bestselling author and master of horror Stephen King teams up with Bev Vincent of Cemetery Dance to present a terrifying collection of sixteen short stories (and ...
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The Female Body Bible
Dr Emma Ross, Baz Moffat & Dr Bella SmithUNDERSTAND YOUR BODY TO EMPOWER YOURSELF FOR LIFE.This book will help you create healthy habits that consider all aspects of female health at every life stage, including how to: ha...
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The Anatomy of Liverpool
Jonathan Wilson, Jonathan Wilson Ltd & Scott MurrayJonathan Wilson and Scott Murray provide a forensic analysis of ten key Liverpool games that have shaped the club's fortunes over the last century: from the longlost triumphs of To...
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In Hot Pursuit
D. ShannonLate evening, New York City: young American adventuress Faith Ballard makes a reckless and illegal parachute jump off a tall building. Evading the police, she hides in the flat of ...