Design Patterns – Green Media Mediography

Nature reclaiming civilization

This includes in-game scenarios in which civilization has declined or ceased to exist and its remnants are reclaimed by nature, e.g. animals and unchecked plant growth. This can be a defamiliarizing moment and help address presentism, i.e. the disproportionate focus on the (exceptionality of the) present circumstances, possibly coupled with the belief that these circumstances

Optimistic playable future scenarios

Tapping into aesthetics like Solarpunk, games can use bright, vibrant color palettes, and optimistic (though ideally not unrealistic/naive) plotlines to inspire interest in and engagement with hopeful real-world developments like community-driven technology alternatives, renewable energy production or permaculture initiatives. On that note, it is important to acknowledge the need to keep iterating on narrative, aesthetic

Simulating ecosystemic interactions

As argued by authors like Benjamin Abraham in his definition of an ‘ecological game’, few in-game environments are simulated in a reactive way that explicitly frames nature as more than an ornamental backdrop or a resource. While an exhaustive simulation of food webs and other ecosystem interactions is too complex for (at least commercial) games

Simulating ecosystemic limitations

If players overfish or over-harvest in a game like Stardew Valley (with certain mods) or The Sims 4: Eco Lifestyle, the environment visibly degrades, affecting their character’s health and happiness.

Using real-world climate data

Games like Fate of the World use real-world climate data (IPCC models) to show the long-term, often irreversible consequences of policy decisions on global temperature and GDP. This could also include the use of real-world climate models, likely in an abstracted, more accessible form, to determine in-game events. This is still comparatively rare; for example,

Playable animal or plant protagonist

An increasing number of games enable players to take on the role of a non-human animal or plant. This pattern may work with negative emotions like a sense of being overwhelmed or helpless, e.g. in the fact of in-game climate threats like wildfires (as in a VR exhibit like Tree or a game like Gibbon:

Nature as a ‘character’

This pattern involves design choices that grant ‘agency’, i.e. the ability to push back or act independently of the player, to natural phenomena in games. This may draw on animist narratives and motifs but can be implemented just as well in a more mundane, maybe even urban context.

Cultivating repetitive actions

Games like Spiritfarer tentatively incorporate repetitive tasks – which may but do not have to be sustainability-oriented like foraging or waste collection – not as chores, but as meditative acts that emphasize principles like care over automation and optimization, allow for practicing deceleration and more broadly defamiliarize our daily routines, allowing us to recognize more

Genre Inversion

This pattern involves taking an existing (sub)genre, ideally one clearly associated with anti-ecological modes of thinking, and trying to ‘invert’ the basic gameplay or at least change/remove a constitutive element. A well-known example is the ‘reverse citybuilder’ gameplay in games like Terra Nil, but this could be adapted to other genres as well, particularly in

Slow Environmental Transformation

In-game systems that ensure a deliberate, slow transformation of the in-game environment that unfolds gradually over time as exemplified by games like Planet Crafter. This requires more ‘investment’ from the player and may even initially go overlooked but, if implemented well, more accurately conveys the fact that the climate crisis is not an instantaneous event

Discovering in-game environments in ‘layers’

Rather than being visible and/or marked as interactable immediately, elements of the natural game environment appear like background first and only belatedly, e.g. once the player has improved specific skills, become highlighted and interactive. For example, in the Hero of the Valley series of fantasy games, players first perceive plants as part of the static

Social Choice Mirror

Refers to in-game systems that enable players to compare their actions and choices with a (preferably real but also, to a lesser degree, virtual) ‘public’. This social confirmation habit is a powerful behavioral principle that can potentially be used to reinforce environmentally conscious decisions (e.g. individual consumer choices) but also to call into question unsustainable