Earlier this year, PSFK and The Climate Reality Project challenged creative professionals to come up with concepts that address issues of climate change and to create potential game solutions.
The Climate Reality Project, which focuses on the climate crisis as a problem that needs innovative solutions was founded and chaired by Al Gore and focuses on what they call one simple truth: The climate crisis is real and we know how to solve it.
For the challenge – the games were to focus on climate change and meet one or more of these objectives:
•To Build Awareness
•To Promote Fundraising
•To Solve The Unsolvable
•To Embed Knowledge
•To Teach People New Skills
•To Improve Everyday Personal Behavior
•To Leverage Collective Manpower
In the Gaming for Good challenge, there were over 60 entries. The strongest concepts were chosen by The Climate Reality Project, and are now viewable online.
I spent time checking out the winners of the Gaming For Good challenge. One of my favorites is RealiTree, which is a game played where individual users of the game, while playing and making and tracking decisions in their lives contribute data that is merged through the game engine. The users data that – once merged is used to generate a large projected image of a tree in a public place which changes, based on the actions of the players. The tree is a visualization of the “health” of the climate and the choices of the users of the game.
Overall, my favorite games were built for mobile devices, and supported users in making green choices. The games can be viewed in an online presentation format on PSFK’s website.
Image Source:
PSFK.com – Gaming For Good Project
Links:
Gaming For Good Games – Climate Reality Project – Games (on PSFK) website
Gaming For Good – The Climate Reality Project site