Have you ever imagined mixing Tetris with… Sim City?

Don’t have to anymore… City Rain already exists!
UPDATE2: New trailer (above) for the complete game and official release!
UPDATE3: The official City Rain website switched to OvoloGames

City Rain: Building Sustainability was released few days ago and you can buy it on Direct2Drive for 10 bucks!

I still didn’t play the new version, but I see revamped graphics, new gameplay, and lots of interesting new stuff there.
Túlio Soria, one of the game developers, sent me a heads up on the brazilian portuguese version of this post.

Check the official City Rain website from Mother Gaia Studio!

Blog IndieGames also did a couple of articles about the release of City Rain:
IndieGames – City Rain Release Announcement
IndieGames – City Rain Review

Following up, the article I wrote about it when I first heard of the game, right before they won Microsoft’s Imagine Cup!

note. The previous update to this post was made in June 16th 2008.
+——————————————————————–+

After some research, still not 100% shure bout this, I found the name of the development team behind the game: Mother Gaia Studio.

That apart, I only know they are brazilian, and that they developed this interesting game using XNA (works for Windows and XBox 360) for a competition called Imagine Cup.

Imagine Cup is a competition with several different categories like: Software Design, Short Film, Photography, Game Design, among others with the theme “Imagine a World Where Technology Enables a Sustainable Environment”. Microsoft and UNESCO are among the people behind it.

The group is among the 6 selected competitors, and they are going to be on the finals in Paris on an event that will happen between days 3 and 8 of July this year. Best of luck to them!

City Rain isn’t only about the fun mix between Tetris and Sim City… it also has an educational side, with themes like urbanism, ecology and sustainability. One of the objectives of the game is “building” your city in a way so it won’t harm the environment.

I played it for an hour. It is addicting and lots of fun.
Check it out:

Watching this YouTube video:

Or downloading and playing the demo version.
It’s from the official page.

Thanks to Chrysthian Akihiro and the Computer Game Development 2008 class from Positivo University (Curitiba) for indicating the game!

UPDATE: They won! Congratulations to Mother Gaia Studio crew! Read more at Kotaku.

Also, for those interested in games made in Brazil, check out Taikodom.