Green Media Mediography – Utrecht University

Pokémon Pokopia

Pokémon Pokopia is perhaps the most explicit ‘environmental’ game in the franchise’s history, which makes it an interesting case study. Developed by Game Freak and Omega Force it pivots from the series’ traditional gameplay loop based on catching and battling Pokémon to a gameplay paradigm and corresponding story focused on restoration and rewilding. It has

Renature

Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer. Art by Dennis Lohausen. Deep Print Games, 2020. 2-4 players | 45-60 minutes | Age 8+ Renature is a competitive board game where players plant trees in a national park to compete for points. There are various methods for collecting points: by planting trees which are an equal or larger

Rustling Leaves

Paolo Mori. Art by Elli Jäger. Kosmos, 2020. 2-6 Players | 20 minutes | Age 8+ Rustling Leaves is a roll-and-write game set in a forest habitat with varying rules as the seasons – spring, summer, autumn, and winter – change. Each player will get a sheet of paper upon which a grid represents the

Parks

Henry Aubudon. Art by Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series. Keymaster Games, 2021. 1-5 players | 30-60 minutes | Age 10+ Parks is a resource management and travel board game where players take on the role of hikers trekking trails in North American national parks throughout four seasons of the year. The game’s objective is to score

Ecosystem

Matt Simpson. Art by Lindsay Falsone. Genius Games, 2019. 2-6 Players | 15-20 minutes | Age 10+ Ecosystem is a card-drafting game in which players must place cards in a 5 x 4 grid to cultivate their own ecosystem. The objective is to score points by positioning certain cards next to each other: bees will

Sequoia

Sequoia. Chad DeShon. Art by Anca Gavril and Daniel Profiri. BoardGameTables.com, 2020. 2-5 Players | 10 minutes | Age 6+ Sequoia is a dice game in which the objective is to vie for dominance and score points by having the tallest (or second tallest) tree in each of the game’s eleven different forests. Each player

Whisper of the House

Whisper of the House is one of those cozy games that immediately pulls players into its gentle rhythm. Similar to the popular title Unpacking, the core gameplay revolves around unpacking, tidying and decorating the interiors of various houses. However, Whisper of the House expands on this gameplay by adding a range of charming townspeople, each

The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature Expansion Pack

The Sims 4 expansion pack "Enchanted by Nature" presents an idealized and heavily romanticized representation of rural life and living with nature inspired by the 'cottagecore' aesthetic and the British countryside.

Grow Wild

Grow Wild is a cozy sandbox style game in which players can discover new plants, find bugs, and watch the world change around them. Players discover the natural phenomena around them and document the different stages of plants and animals throughout the year.

Cloud Gardens

From the presskit description: “In Cloud Gardens the player overgrows lo-fi scenes of urban decay and manufactured landscapes. Plant your seeds in the right place to create small overgrown dioramas with hundreds of different items and progress through the stages in six chapters. Discover a dozen different seeds and learn how to make them thrive.

Community Garden: The Board Game

Community Garden is an easy-to-learn, strategic board game for 2 – 4 players that takes about 45-60 minutes to play. In the game, players will use Gardeners to gather resources like water and compost, and then they will play cards ranging from Dill to Strawberries to Butternut Squash. The player who has scored the most

Spilled!

Spilled! takes players to a captivating but polluted world that they need to clean up to watch it come back to life. It taps into the pleasure of frictionless ‘cleaning’ that a small but growing number of game are catering to, both with and without an explicit environmental subtext (like e.g. Powerwash Simulator). Spilled! is

Outbound

Outbound is a crowdfunded game project by Dutch developer Square Glade Games about building one’s own home on wheels and living sustainably off-grid by crafting workstations, sourcing energy, upgrading, customizing, and automating processes. Image source: https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/open-world-camper-van-exploration-game-outbound-announced-for-pc