Green Media Mediography – Utrecht University

Eco Lifestyle Careers and NPCs (The Sims 4)

In the base game of The Sims 4 withe the Eco Lifestyle expansion, the environmental systems sometimes feel more like a top-down macro-level simulation. The ecological footprint meter and regulatory NPCs like the Eco Inspector reflect the state of the players’s lot but don’t afford much input or self-expression. Gauntlet101010’s Eco Lifestyle Careers and NPCs

Thrifty Business

Thrifty Business by Spellgarden Games is not explicitly framed as an ‘ecogame’ – neither by players nor the developers – but it has some interesting characteristics for climate communication and sustainable behavior as it revisits the recently popularized shopkeeper simulation (sub) genre but focuses instead on topics like community care and material circularity. Rather than

Circular City – the board game

Conceived and developed through a cross-border partnership between the municipality of Prato (Italy), the municipality of Taichung (Taiwan), and ARCO (Action Research for Co-Development) at the University of Florence, “Circular City – the board game” is an educational, non-profit serious game designed to model the real-world complexities of transitioning toward a sustainable future. Rather than

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

“My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future”. The British filmmaker and naturalist, David Attenborough, has devoted his career to educating people about nature and, more recently, the climate crisis. The 2020 documentary David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet weights in on the climate crisis by aiming to subvert the traditional nature documentary

Ecology: The Game of Man and Nature

From the Science History Institute website: “Ecology: The Game of Man and Nature was published in 1970 by Urban Systems, a consulting and research firm, whose president, Richard H. Rosen, was an ecologist and environmental engineer. While teaching undergraduate air pollution classes at Harvard, Rosen produced a number of anti-pollution board games for educational purposes.

SimCity BuildIt

SimCity BuildIt is a city-building simulation and strategy game. This mobile game is the latest version of the SimCity franchise. The game challeges users to build their own city that gets more and more complicated. Playes need keep citizens happy and, therefore, need to reduce pollution and build parks for example. Environmental motifs are woven

Immergency AR

Sliced Bread Animation, together with the Immergency team, created a collaborative game in AR that educates players on climate change policies, and the importance of working together to reduce carbon emissions as part of a XR competition. The game works as a virtual ‘escape room’, in which players go through a series of puzzles and

Earth Rising: 20 Years to Transform Our World

Earth Rising: 20 Years to Transform Our World is a cooperativeCooperation This is a dummy entry about cooperation. board game for 1 to 6 players. Each player takes on a role such as activist, scientist, politician, or innovator, working together to achieve sustainability before time runs out. The game lasts for twenty rounds, each representing

Lumino City

Lumino City is a BAFTA award-winning puzzle game that addresses the topic of renewable energy. The game represents renewable energy as a functional necessity within the gameplay. To progress, the player must learn how natural forces like wind, water and the sun can be harnessed to power a small community. For example, in one early

Sustainability City (Minecraft Education)

The lesson pack “Sustainability City” for Minecraft Education frames sustainability as a process integrating elements like urban planning, consumer behavior, and responsible resource management. It does not fucs only on environmental protection, but on enhancing economic modes of production and quality of life by reducing waste and using renewable energy.The mod breaks down sustainability into

Carbon City Zero

Carbon City Zero: World Edition is a collaborative deck-building game for 1-4 people (aged 8+), in which players develop a sustainable city by greening transport, transforming industries, getting citizens on board, and showing world leaders how it’s done. Each player starts with an identical deck, buying additional cards from a shared marketplace to create a

Monopoly

Monopoly. Elizabeth J. Magie and Charles Darrow. Hasbro, 1935. 2-8 players | 60-180 mins | Age 8+ Monopoly is a game that sees players take the role of land owners who buy and develop land, growing their property portfolios and financially ruining their rivals in an often bitter battle of financial domination. Its rules are

Eternagram

In order to measure individual propensity to climate communication, a team led by the City University of Hong Kong created a text-adventure game that allows players to explore a non-Earth world guided by a ChatGPT-based in-game character. The researchers collected in-game dialogues of players conversing freely with the character, and player choices from designed game

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.

Diving into an Acidifying Ocean

"Diving into an Acidifying Ocean" brings along the users on an interactive journey that will educate them more about the dangers of ocean acidification while going back in time or travelling into the future.

Earth 2053: Tipping Point

In the board game Earth 2053: Tipping Point, 1-4 players represent countries that work together to prevent a global climate catastrophe. The main scoring is based on a physical seesaw board where "prevention" tokens are placed on one side and "pollution" tokens on the other.

Never Alone

Never Alone, or Kisima Inŋitchuŋa, is a game developed in collaboration with native people of Alaska, called the Iñupiat. The game is about a young Iñupiat girl and a fox trying to find the source of a devastating blizzard that is threatening their world.

The Sims 4: Eco Lifestyle

The Sims 4 is the fourth entry in a series of games known as The Sims. In these games, the player is able to simulate daily life by creating individuals, known as sims, and making decisions for these sims. This way, each player can completely customize their sims and the lives they live. The Eco

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is a role-playing video game developed by Northway Games and published by Finji. The player starts the game as a ten year old, going through events that affect their colony on an alien planet until the game ends when they turn twenty. The game lets players spend their teenage years

Snowpiercer (Movie)

Snowpiercer is a 2013 post-apocalyptic movie by Bong Joon-ho based on the French graphic novel “Le Transperceneige” by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. The movie takes place in a fictional near future, in which Earth has completely frozen due to climate change and ecocide. All humankind left survives aboard a single train, the

Frostpunk 2

Frostpunk 2 is the sequel of the 2018 RTS (Real Time Strategy) game by 11 bit studios in which the player takes the role of a Overseer entitled to administrate a small community in a frozen post-apocalyptic Earth.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (S01E09)

The Zom 100 anime is set in a zombie apocalypse scenario, with a group of protagonists roaming around Japan and trying to fulfill their ‘bucket list’ of life aspirations, which they were unable to act on under the conditions of modern-day Japanese society. In episode 9, the group makes its way to the protagonist’s parents

Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2 is the direct sequel of 2012 Arkane Studios’ awarded Dishonored. The story takes place a few years past the events of the first chapter, and lets the player take on the role of Empress Emily Kaldwin. Usurped of her throne by the Duke Luca Abele, she embarks on a journey through the southern

Dishonored

Dishonored is an immersive-sim game set in a fictional world that recalls the Victorian Era imaginary. The player takes on the role of Corvo, the Royal Protector and master of spies that is accused of killing the Empress. To redeem his name and save the princess, Emily, he makes a deal with a mysterious demigod