sustainability

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

game studies

Playing with Sustainability

“In this article, we analyze representative commercial video games in four categories: civilization simulations, post–apocalypse first–person shooters, multiplayer survivor horror games, and historical recreations. We examine the ways their game mechanics and game scenarios represent social, economic and environmental interdependencies. We contrast these representations with future scenarios of gradually increasing scarcity of resources, climate change, and other human–environment interactions which can be influenced by transitioning to sustainable practices.” – Shawna Kelly & Bonnie Nardi

Eco Game environment game

Banished

“In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travellers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland. The objective of the game is to keep the population alive and grow it into a successful culture.” – Banished