With Keep Cool, each player takes a role within global climate politics. You have to put through economic interests – e.g., of the USA and its partners or of the Developing Countries – yet you must not forget the strong lobby groups in your country like the oil industry or environmental groups as they also decide whether you win or lose. Within each round of the game you have to decide between measures for climate protection good for all and egoistic decisions just for your own sake. The risk: catastrophes like droughts, floods or pandemics. The chance: welfare and a stable global climate. Whoever reaches his targets first wins, yet if you are not cooperative enough all players might lose due to a collapse of the world climate. (From the publisher’s website)
Jason S. Wu and Joey J. Lee (Columbia University) use Keep Cool as the key example in their paper ‘Climate Change Games for Education and Engagement (2015), arguing that climate change games can serve as effective tools, arguing that ‘they are not only highly engaging, they also allow players to build empathy by taking on various roles and perspectives. They allow for visioning — for example, being able to envi- sion oneself in the future — and seeing consequences of actions at different points in time. Furthermore, games deliver experiences that tap into a range of human emotions, from fear and aggression to joy and wonder’ (p. 413).
Bernjamin D. Douglas and Markus Brauerthe, who discuss the game positively in their article ‘Gamification to Prevent Climate Change,’ found that Keep Cool increased youths’ feelings of personal responsibility for sustainability and the belief in international cooperation for finding solutions to climate change. Kristoffer S. Fjaellingsdal and Christian A. Klöckner (2020) similarly found that the game (along with others in their study) was found to be more engaging and understandable than traditional science communication in communicating climate science.
References
Douglas, Benjamin D., and Markus Brauer. “Gamification to Prevent Climate Change: A Review of Games and Apps for Sustainability.” Current Opinion in Psychology, vol. 42, 2021, pp. 89–94.
Fjaellingsdal, Kristoffer S., and Christian A. Klöckner. “Green Across the Board: Board Games as Tools for Dialogue and Simplified Environmental Communication.” Simulation and Gaming, vol. 51, no. 5, 2020.
Wu, Jason S., and Joey J. Lee. “Climate Change Games as Tools for Education and Engagement.” Nature Climate Change, vol. 5, no. 5, 2015, pp. 413–18.