Regenerate! is a collaborative resource management game through which players navigate regenerative land stewardship, sustainable development, and systems design thinking. It was a project of the LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch design challenge and was developed in collaboration with Land Art Generator, Tunnel Monster Collective, and Fly Ranch Project.
Regenerate! is designed for 1 to 6 players, with each player taking on the role of a unique partner with special abilities. The game is played over 20 rounds, which simulate two decades. The primary goal is to maximize the Community Score (the game’s victory points) while simultaneously minimizing landscape degradation. The team manages and strategically budgets four key resources: water, food, energy, and capital.
The game simulates the escalating impact of climate change on the community and landscape. To achieve this, the game’s Event Phase intensifies as the rounds progress:
- Stage 1 (Rounds 1–10): One event card is revealed and resolved per round.
- Stage 2 (Rounds 11–15): Two event cards are revealed and resolved per round.
- Stage 3 (Rounds 16–20): Three event cards are revealed and resolved per round. The positive or negative impact of these events is also intensified as the game progresses.
Each round is divided into four phases:
- Event Phase: Event card(s) are revealed and resolved, with impacts adjusted based on the current Stage of climate change.
- Partner Phase: Each player (Partner) takes three actions: Dream Step (draw an opportunity card, share cards or gain capital), Design Step (place a card into a project slot or take an Operate action), and Deploy Step (pay/gain resources and move a project to the board, or take a Restore action).
- Counter Phase: Counter cubes are added to projects with Growth (to collect resources) or Duration (to track removal time).
- Zone Condition Phase: Hazards and resilience are added to the board. Degenerative zones receive 1 hazard, and regenerative zones receive 1 resilience, which impacts the team’s final score.
The game concludes after 20 rounds, with the final Community Score adjusted based on the landscape condition and the completion of 19 potential achievements.
Regenerate! can be an effective experiential learning tool, aligning with themes of project management, sustainability, and systems thinking; specifically, it addresses the following learning goals:
- Identify and sustainably utilize limited and abundant natural resources in high elevation deserts.
- Analyze how multiple stressors (anthropogenic and natural disturbances) compound negative impacts on ecosystems and communities.
- Describe the value of regenerative land use planning for long-term sustainability and efficient resource use.
- Discuss the costs and benefits of deploying various renewable energy and agricultural systems in an ecologically sensitive area.
- Understand the value of interdisciplinary relationships and adaptive project management.
- Hands-on experience in project and resource management.
- Practicing business decisions in a stressful environment.
- Building team-building and collaboration among classmates.
- Developing communication skills through the discussion of decisions, cost/benefit analysis, and resource allocation.
- Encouraging reflection on decisions based on the final win/loss outcome.