Games For Change

I browsed and briefly played quite a few games from the Games For Change and Social Impact Games sites, but will describe only two here in this post. As I explored those sites, it became very clear what was meant by Serious Games. These are certainly not fun topics. Those that are well-made are certainly engaging and I could find myself getting involved in them, even experiencing the concept of 'flow', but I don't know if I would call myself entertained. This was almost certainly the purpose of many of them.

The first game that I'll describe is Global Warming Interactive, a game created with funding from the NSF to teach high school students about climate change. The game as it exists right now allows students to interact with and affect the policies of one
country, Brazil, in order to modify this country's impact on the environment and preserve its resources and quality of life for its citizens. The player does this by analyzing the available data and forecasts for resource use and air quality, then taking on the roles of the Policy, Economic, and Science Advisers for the country in order to make decisions about how to use resources.

The game does a great job of modeling the situation for one country, and I'm curious to see what the result will be when and if the designers receive funding and expand the game to a global model. The ambition of the game is also to involve students from different parts of the world in a multiplayer simulation in which they would control the policies of different countries struggling to set policies for that are in their countries' interests, but that also protect resources and the quality of the environment for all. Though the model of the data and forecasts is great, the interface is difficult to manage, and I consider it the weakness of this game. It needs to be streamlined and clarified to make it more accessible to its audience.


The second game that I'd like to describe is Mission Migration from the New York Audubon Society. This game's mission is to educate children about the needs and challenges of migrating birds.

The player takes control of a flock of birds and attempts to guide them to their migration destination. On the way the birds must avoid storms and planes and find safe pesticide and pollution free areas to rest. The game would probably be fun for younger kids and it does a nice job of informing players of the challenges and dangers for birds without being preachy about it. The drawbacks are that it quickly becomes a challenge of eye-hand coordination when the clouds and planes start coming at you quickly. Finding landing sites is just a crapshoot since the icons that represent safe or dangerous locations are too small to see until its too late. But the intended audience would probably be entertained and educated, so I guess my complaints aren't all that important.