Environmental Game

Whats the project about

 In this project we will look at the use case of an Irish land-use conflict, by translating it into a playable serious game prototype. Serious games have the potential to model real world situations, which can help to better understand the effects of the choices made by stakeholders. You will learn about serious game design and develop competences that are essential for professionals aiming for the SDGs. You will also learn about Ireland by looking at a local land-use conflict.

So far, the tradeoffs between stakeholders’ interests have been subject to mainly qualitative discussions on how to find some kind of acceptable compromise. The outcome of these discussions is often strongly biased depending on the strength of the actors, where those representing the economical side often have the upper hand. Some more quantitative and mathematical approaches also exist (e.g., optimization theory). Although representing an opportunity for a more unbiased outcome, they easily become very complex problems to solve mathematically and depend on the details of how the problem is formulated. 
  
For example: forests cover about 1/3 of the European land area and are a key resource for a large industry. At the same time, forests represent important areas for biodiversity (plants and animals) and contain many cultural and social values – values that are threatened by large-scale industrial forestry and may be in conflict with other land-use such as agriculture. Another aspect of this is, when the economy changes and businesses, such as tourism and recreation industries are new actors in the landscape, there might be new conflicts as well as new opportunities using the landscape differently. Is there a new opportunity, where nature have a higher value than previously?  
As such, it represents a clear example of land-use conflicts and newborn land use opportunities. Here, new tools based on gaming could help to illustrate some of the key challenges. Can next turn of the dice lead to both more nature and higher values to the human society? 

More about the project and goals

An approach so far not so much explored, is to view land-use conflicts as a “serious game". Serious games have the potential to include many variables and complex sets of relations, which can help the players to better understand the effects of the choices made by the different land managers and decision makers. To set up such a serious game requires expertise both in game design and specific knowledge of the land-use conflict itself. Through effective design and visualization, serious games can help raise awareness and provide valuable insights for people not specialized in the field.  
   
You will design, prototype and test a game concept that includes a larger landscape (real or imaginary) where different management units should be assigned to a treatment category which then influence the value from economic, environmental and social aspects. The identification of these values and the land-use alternatives are a part of the project. These will then need to be implemented in a game with as much realism as possible while considering game dynamics. Finally, besides being relevant and educative the game should preferably be attractive and fun to play. In the Environmental Game Project we will also learn more about Ireland by looking at a local land-use conflict. 

Study areas

This project targets a number of different study areas. While each study area contributes with an individual expertise to the project outcome, interaction between the study areas is required in order to achieve a successful project result. A dream team for the project should include students with skills or wanting to develop skills in ecology, environmental science, game development, graphic design, communication, business management, political science. 

Contact

Marianne Bossema, Hogeschool van Amsterdam
Paul van den Brink, Mid Sweden University