Optional HD Assets
The highest resolution is not unanimously desired! If you run an older PC, have a slow internet connection, or even […]
Year: 2022
Reduce Internet Traffic
Downloading data from the internet uses electricity, so as game developers, we would do well to minimize the amount of data players have to download.
Lightweight Patches
Prep your game so you can upload neat patches instead of having to replace huge chunks of the game each time.
Irresistible Veggies
Cooking systems that dabble in plant-based food can both inspire and teach real recipes.
Repair, Re-use, Recycle
In-game economies can be circular economies - build player habits of repair and re-use, and raise the value of junk.
Bear & Breakfast
Kind is the new Cool
Kindness can move mountains.
Cleaning Up Your Data Storage Policy
Data storage needs energy: the more data you store, the higher your emissions.
Reduce Your Studio Carbon Footprint
Reduce the carbon emission of each step of the game industry lifecycle, from raw materials extraction to game data storage.
Reduce Electricity Use at Runtime
Video games use electricity. But how much? Measure and act to drastically reduce your game's direct footprint.
Slow the Technology Arms Race
Fight device obsolescence, reduce e-waste and prove once and for all that beefier hardware doesn't make for better games.
Miracle Ports
Bring the extra optimization done for console or mobile ports back to high-end devices.
Power-Saving Mode
Add an" Eco mode" in console or games settings to save power.
SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge
A modified version of SimCity designed to teach systems thinking.
The Metagame
Forums, fan groups, Let’s Plays, E-Sports commentary, UGC, and/or modding communities can add depth and meaning to the experience.
Facilitation & Communication
Facilitators guiding the discussion after gameplay can prompt questions to guide thinking, mitigate confusion, and create deeper understanding.
Collaboration
The act of collaborative problem solving (with players or NPCs) can greatly increase the effectiveness of a player’s learning experience.
Competition
At worst, competition without meaningful context has the risk of actively encouraging anti-environmental behaviors and thinking.
System Realism
Simulations that directly and accurately reflect a real-world system can build incredibly rich system knowledge.
Collecting Scientific Data
Game designers can gamify the collection of data such as gas levels, electrical consumption, and water quality.
Locality & Local Knowledge
While limiting in its scalability, local games are highly focused and have shown significant, measurable impact on communities in a variety of contexts.
Real World Action
Real World Action Games (RWAGs) require players to take action outside of the game, such as engaging with nature or reducing their carbon footprint.
Investment in Specifics
Including specific places or developing named, fleshed-out characters can encourage emotional investment in protecting those places or creatures.
Conflicting Goals
Conflicting goals force the player to accept limited success, choose a goal to prioritize, or risk failure by riding the fence.
Transactive Learning & Transformational Play
When player action significantly impacts the game world in ways that are visible and persistent, it can boost emotional engagement and sense of self-efficacy.
Sensory Affect
Emotional connection to environmental issues can be approached through design of visual art, audio or force feedback.
No-Win Scenarios
When used to consider real world situations, no-win scenarios can force a player to reconsider the validity of a solution they may take for granted.
New Goal Orientation
By working towards new, unfamiliar goals, players build empathy, learn, and think critically about solving real world issues.
Forced Discomfort
Players can be made to confront difficult truths or experience difficult situations by forcing discomfort through audio-visual elements, or social norm violation.
Experimentation & Inquiry
Experiment-based gameplay leads to model-based reasoning and systematic knowledge.
Intrinsic Integration
When understanding the target concepts is necessary to interact with the game, learning becomes fun.
Normalize Green Tech
Showing how green tech increases energy security, prevents environmental disasters, and decreases harm to local communities can help players understand why this innovation matters.
Redefine Patterns of “Masculinity”
Healthy eco-masculinity can enable people to feel comfortable expressing their concern for the environment without fear of disrespect, isolation, or harm.
Incorporating Tradition
Games can actively further the teachings of indigenous peoples, with great benefits for sustainability.
When Rivers Were Trails
Beth LaPensée reinterprets The Oregon Trail from the perspective of a displaced native man.
The Rise of World Games
Games can honor the cultures of indigenous peoples across the world, and bring them to life in a new way.
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) is a cooperative platformer drawn from the folklore of Alaskan Native peoples, specifically the Iñupiat.
Celebrate Indigenous Wisdom
Indigenous communities protect 90% of the planet's remaining biodiversity, with long-standing practices that enrich climate action.
Fossil-Free Survival
Survival games can think seriously about which methods of power generations are available to the player, and how they're portrayed.
Subnautica
Renewable Worldbuilding
Visions of a renewable future can come from the most unexpected games.
ArmA 3
Knowing is Half the Battle
Transformers: Earth War added a new mini-campaign to talk about renewable energy.
Transformers: Earth War
Reclaiming History
How can settler games avoid their colonial baggage and tell new stories about land and who owns it?
Before We Leave
This game applies an anti-colonialist, environmental lens on the settler genre.
The Extinction Achievement
Extinction mechanics, even when used ironically, are great at reminding players that no resource is limitless.
Red Dead Redemption
Settle With Care
What does a settler game that takes environmental consequences into account look like?
Anno 1800
Origins of Lanayru Desert
That time when Zelda offered an environmental parable.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Grief as a Game Mechanic
Signs of the Sojourner has an environmental grief system that both breaks us down and ties us together.
The Tragedy of Galarian Corsola
When coral bleaching came to Pokémon.
Pokémon Sword / Shield
Signs of the Sojourner
Meaning in a World of Ruin
Game worlds can be "transapocalyptic" - places that have collapsed, yet they still exist and they are still worth fighting for.
Final Fantasy VI
Braving the Lost Forest
When Monument Valley 2 made us think like a tree.
Monument Valley 2
Anthropomorphize Everything?
Anything can engender empathy if you put enough human features on it - so when should you?
Botanicula
Beyond Blue
Save the Sperm Whales
Beyond Blue has the player studying a specific pod of sperm whales and investigating sound pollution that disturbs their life.
Showcase a Climate Solution
Normalize real-world climate solutions by incorporating them into your world lore, story, and/or game mechanics.
Reveal Costs of Extraction
Challenge age-old gaming tropes to remind players that nothing lasts forever and that pillaging nature's pantry has consequences!
Put Down Your Tools
When your release day coincides with the world's largest climate protest, what do you prioritize?
Untitled Goose Game
Battlefield 2042
Climate as Catalyst
Games like Battlefield 2042 embody the risk of climate wars being fought in the near future. Or are they already here?
Acknowledge the Climate Emergency
"The most important thing you can do for climate - talk about it" Dr. Katharine Hayhoe
Imagine a Sustainable Future
Unlike dystopias featuring urban decay and corruption, solarpunk helps us imagine worlds where crises are solved with camaraderie and ingenuity.
Facilitate Grief for the World
The climate crisis is a major existential threat that can be very overwhelming. Games and storytelling can help us process emotions into action.
Movement Building Games
Meet the games that lay the foundation for a new genre of movement building.
Suikoden
Shinra: The Face of Colonialism
Final Fantasy VII provided us with one of popular culture's most devastating caricatures of capitalism, colonialism and greed.
Oil Ocean Zone
Associating your villain with fossil fuel production has always been a classy move.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Deal: A Green New Election
Dirty Politics
Based on real events, Deal: A Green New Election puts players on a collision course with the frustrations of fossil fuel money in US politics
Oiligarchy
Oiligarchy casts the player as an oil executive tasked with growing their business at any cost.
Calling Out Fossil Fuel Corruption
In the world of Oiligarchy, addiction is the goal.
Fighting Oil Pipelines
If you wonder whether your game is making a difference, the oil industry fighting back is the clearest signal you can ask for.
Thunderbird Strike
A game steeped in Anishinaabe culture, celebrating the indigenous fight against oil pipelines in the Great Lakes region.
Erode Social License
Call out the corruption, deceit and propaganda of polluting industries, real or fictional, and help ruin their hard-won prestige in the real world!