"How can we build climate leaders' trust and belief in transformational games?"
To engage leaders with the idea, we needed to engage them with an interactive experience. A walkthrough of a prototype, or a vertical slice may be proof enough to those familiar with game development, but this audience needed to experience what playing through a game like this would feel like for themselves.
Competencies
- Consulted with my team for feedback and input on the pitch for the game: technical specifications, target audience information, and our game pillars. Synthesized these with my ideas for turning our resilience solutions into gameplay to create a game concept, illustrated using a Google Jam Board.
- Developed the game in Unreal Engine 4 utilizing a plugin to pull data from Google Forms, enabling forum participants to play along and engage in a way they can recognize as analogous to the experience of players in a “regular” game.
- Presented the game on-stage with the rest of the gaming team and facilitated the audience of around 50 playing along with us.
Findings
- Using the US Climate Resilience Map, found relevant resilience solutions for the game's setting (the American Southwest).
- Players were realistic about the potential impact of resilience solutions, and appreciated locality and specificity moreso than posturing at a grand, global impact from a few changes in player behavior.
- The hybrid control of presenters and audience was engaging, but had the potential to be more seamless, and focus on actions by specific players likely would've improved engagement.
Context
My team tasked me with creating some demonstration of climate resilience-focused gaming for our Forum on Global Resilience, and I had the time and resource within the company to produce a playable demo as opposed to what was expected- a slide-deck mockup, or concept.