games

Change the Game, Change the Climate

- Adam Clare

As a game designer who creates games about the climate crisis and what we can do about it, this recent article in the Guardian warmed my heart. The article looks at how games can help people understand the climate crisis and that there’s still hope that we can do something about it. Games are fantastic for teaching people systems and what external factors impact those systems, which is a great way to capture the complexity of ecosystems.

Go play some climate friendly games!

“There is an increased public desire to engage with climate change in a tangible way,” said designer Matt Parker, who has also taught courses on game development. “Often people don’t want to confront climate change or feel powerless in the face of its complexity. But a lot of the joy of board games is in engaging complex systems with other people.”

In 2020, Wingspan, in which players develop biodiverse bird habitats, was named the best strategy game by the American Tabletop Awards. The game was reviewed by the science journal Nature, in addition to more traditional gaming publications, and sold over 750,000 sets in its first year.

Last year, Cascadia, where players compete to create “the most harmonious ecosystem” in the Pacific north-west, won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award as well as American Tabletop Awards’ best strategy competition.

Other recent titles include Kyoto, where players put themselves in the shoes of climate negotiators; Renature, where the objective is to restore a polluted valley, and Tipping Point, where participants build cities that must adapt to a warming climate.

Read more.

Thanks to Stuart!

Game Workers Uniting for Better Workplaces

- Adam Clare
Interview

In creative industries labour exploitation can happen because employers can get away with leaning into the passion creative workers bring to their field. The video game industry may be a young industry, but the tricks of getting free labour from workers are old ones. As a result, movements like Game Workers Unite have popped up to help video game workers get the respect they deserve.

Recently workers at Activision created the largest video game union and in Canada a union has been formed at a game service company. This is the beginning of a larger movement in the industry which is great to see. Professor Johanna Weststar has looked into why this is happening now:

We can trace the history of game worker resistance to see some of these fluctuations. Examples include the Easter Egg planted by programmer Warren Robinett in Atari’s Adventure, the brief formation of a virtual union called UbiFree in France in 1998 and the infamous EA Spouse affair in 2004.

…

The shine is coming off the rhetoric of “passion” that reinforces individualism, valorizes heroic efforts for the sake of the game and promotes worker alignment with employer interests.

Read more.

Thanks to Roger!

How Early Video Games Expressed Environmentalism

- Adam Clare

thanks motherboard

It can be fun to tune out and just play some games, and that’s a good thing. There are games that are obviously educational like Math Blaster and there are games like Carmen Sandiego that celebrate fun over learning while still teaching. Indeed, there are many games being played that entertain and educate at the same time – and they are subtle about it. In what is partly a self-exploratory piece over at Motherboard the author has created a list of early Sega games that celebrated environmentalism.

So every now and then, take a break, and relax by playing games.

In Sonic 2, our heroic hedgehog speeds through the Chemical Plant, where he definitely doesn’t want to stay under the chemical solutions they’ve been working on for more than a few seconds. Later, he fights toxic sludge-spewing, enslaved and mechanized animals in the “Oil Ocean Zone.” The game ends with Super Sonic flying alongside the baby eagles he’s freed from the evil Dr. Robotnik.

Vectorman follows “Orbots” who are cleaning up Earth because humans have destroyed it: “It’s 2049 and Earth’s cities, forests, and icecaps are fouled with toxic sludge,” the game starts. Vectorman fights through the ruins of humanity’s cityscapes in an attempt to make it safe for the return of mankind.

Read more.

Support DeepCity 2030: A City Sim About Cats And Resilient Cities

- Adam Clare

DeepCity Pitch video from DeepCITY Project on Vimeo.

DeepCity 2030 is like Sim City meets Clash of Clans plus a Laser Cat and at least one Disco Jesus. The game has a hyperbolic approach to climate change and it’s up to the player to figure out what sort of city they want to create. Players can deal with environmental issues by harming other players or by trying to build a green utopia. It’s a social game with a fun environmental twist. The team includes theatre of The End of Suburbia.

By the year 2030, 6 out of 10 humans will live in cities. The way these urban centres evolve to manage their energy and waste will determine the fate of the planet. Deep City 2030 asks the question, ‘What if cities could save the world?’.

The game combines a gritty steampunk aesthetic and off-beat humour with ongoing opportunities for players to demonstrate strategic prowess by inventing possible world futures.

The goal in Deep City 2030 is to survive and build a livable city, using whatever tactics you choose. It’s in your power to create a city that reigns supreme in the face of hostile competitors, a greedy Overlord, and cataclysmic world events. Be the leader of your own futuristic empire in Deep City 2030!

The game starts in a city in the year 2030. Dark, whimsical characters inhabit and can change the city as you play. Players explore deeper post-apocalyptic settings or work towards building resilient cities, solo or multiplayer. Your friends in social networks can be key advisors or adversaries. As in the real world, there are a lot of ways to “get ahead”. You can forge alliances with other players to make your city a better place for everyone. Or you can embrace the dark side and go rogue.

Support DeepCity now.

More coverage about the game elsewhere:

Boing Boing
Cliqist
Animal NY

Full disclosure: I provided some advice for this game.
This post original appeared on my game design blog.

Video Games to Help the World

- Adam Clare

A game based on the story Half the Sky puts players into a perspective usually different than their own: a young girl in the developing world. It teaches young gamers in the developed world empathy and what it’s like to be a young girl trying to make a living in the majority world. It’s always nice to see games being used to make the world a little better.

If you succeed at certain tasks, the game triggers donations through partner charities. For example, the game has donated a quarter-million books. Players can also use real money to purchase virtual items — and that money has brought in more than $450,000 in charitable donations.

Since it launched nearly a year ago, more than 1.1 million people have played Half the Sky. Though that’s nothing compared to a game like Farmville, still it makes Half the Sky one of the most successful advocacy games.

Read more here.

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