Design patterns to craft green messages into games and reduce production impact.

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!
Power-Saving Mode
Add an" Eco mode" in console or games settings to save power.
Miracle Ports
Bring the extra optimization done for console or mobile ports back to high-end devices.
Reduce Electricity Use at Runtime
Video games use electricity. But how much? Measure and act to drastically reduce your game's direct footprint.
Sensory Affect
Emotional connection to environmental issues can be approached through design of visual art, audio or force feedback.
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.
Abstraction
Simplifying or removing the context can enable players to process new information - even if it’s not in alignment with their existing biases.
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.
Showcase a Climate Solution
Normalize real-world climate solutions by incorporating them into your world lore, story, and/or game mechanics.
Anthropomorphize Everything?
Anything can engender empathy if you put enough human features on it - so when should you?
The Tragedy of Galarian Corsola
When coral bleaching came to Pokémon.
Origins of Lanayru Desert
That time when Zelda offered an environmental parable.
Settle With Care
What does a settler game that takes environmental consequences into account look like?
Fossil-Free Survival
Survival games can think seriously about which methods of power generations are available to the player, and how they're portrayed.
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.
Irresistable Veggies
Cooking systems that dabble in plant-based food can both inspire and teach real recipes.
Optional HD Assets
The highest resolution is not unanimously desired! If you run an older PC, have a slow internet connection, or even […]
Paradise in Ruins
Games create intimate relationships between player and place in a way that no other medium can replicate. Suddenly changing a […]
Do Good, Feel Good
We can use rewarding and pleasing aesthetics to make the players feel good. In Terra Nil restoring ecosystems happens in […]
A Contemplative Space
Emotional connection is the key to making players want to invest in the real world or reflect on the meaning […]
Solarpunk Games
Some games take place in worlds where humanity has already acted to solve the climate crisis, and it’s possible to […]
Disgusting Dystopia
Plasticity presents a near future choking under plastic waste, designed with Forced Discomfort to make players react in disgust. In […]
Building the Sustainable City
Cities Skyline: Green Cities manages to both Normalize Green Tech and Imagine a Sustainable Future by exposing players to modern […]
A Simpler Life
We can represent happy lives that do not rely on consumerism, to deprogram the toxic dream of buying ever more […]
In Awe of Nature
We can inspire players to Forge Emotional Bonds with Nature by showing it in all its beauty, using the power […]
Subverting Violence
Games can push players out of their comfort zone and question their assumptions, like Spec Ops: The Line did by […]
Graphical Sufficiency
Picking the right art style from the start makes it much easier to both Reduce Electricity Use at Runtime and […]
How Many Pixels Do You Need?
Resolution is the best predictor of electricity use. By setting dynamic limits, Fortnite ensured that it never draws a sharper image than the game needs.