ecology

environmental sciences

Troubled Lands

“Explore the geopolitics of climate change in Troubled Lands, a 30-min educational game for ages 10 to Adult. Playable as a classroom activity and ideal grades 6 through college, it is a simple to learn yet morally provocative game that requires players to address competing motivations of self-preservation and group loyalty. Many sustainability themes including communal negotiation, governance, inequality, power, and the tragedy of the commons are present in the game. Troubled Lands has been successfully used to support learning in many courses. Troubled Lands is a revised version of a game called The Farmers about which several academic articles have been written.” – Troubled Lands

environmental sciences game design political science

Integrating Climate Change Mechanics Into a Common Pool Resource Game

“The topic of climate change offers unique challenges to simulation game designers largely because standard game mechanics fail to capture the complexity of this real-world problem. Climate change dynamics are characterized by the second-order delayed effects of carbon emissions on global temperatures and by political actors, who often have unique individual goals and asymmetrical abilities.”

environmental sciences

How’s the Weather

“This article examines the role of weather in games, from both a gameplay and a wider ecological perspective. While weather is usually introduced merely as decoration, the author argues that more direct effects on gameplay would make games both more realistic and ecologically savvy. While some progress has been made in certain areas (wind blowing on the grass, rippling water, rain or storms affecting planes in flight simulators), there is still much room improvement and challenges for aspiring game developers and graphics artists.” – Abstract