Stop Disasters

*Click to enlarge images!*

Stop Disasters is a free online single player game that teaches disaster prevention awareness and is aimed towards 9-16 year old children. It is a Sim City-esque game that focuses on saving lives and reducing the financial impact that natural hazards cause when they turn into disasters. There are five scenarios to play (Tsunami, Earthquake, Wildfire, Hurricane, Flood) and each can be played on easy, medium or hard. Since I live in California, I naturally chose to play the wildfire scenario.

At the start of the scenario a helpful citizen tells you how much time/money you have and how many civilians to look after. I was also given an objective to protect the local water pipes - I guess they're important. The interface is straightforward and the 3D graphics are pretty impressive for a flash game.

Developing the map is simple - just click on any square lot on the grid and several options pop up depending on what currently occupies the square. In empty squares you have to option to build structures (3/4 bedroom houses, hospitals, schools) or fire resistant trees, you can firebreak squares occupied with brush or trees to protect the area and make room for more structures, and you can click on existing structures to upgrade them. You have about 10-25 minutes and a certain amount of the map to prepare depending on difficulty.

Once you are done preparing your community or run out of time (whichever comes first) the disaster will start and the situation will be out of your hands. A gloomy news report will appear shortly thereafter - at this point you can take a closer look at the aftermath or check out a detailed report. Pretty cool stuff.

All in all, I found the game to be enjoyable and educational at the same time. The interface does a good job of providing "more info" buttons for almost every clickable element - through those you learn about risk factors, regulations, structural upgrades and many more quality awareness tips. I did encounter a glitch that froze my game the first time I played through, which was quite upsetting since I was about to run the fire simulation. Other than that, it's a very smooth yet detailed game and I look forward to trying out the other disaster scenarios.

The game is brought to you by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.