WHAT?

A fast-paced tablet game where a player is tasked with expanding a farm in the rainforest by cutting down trees and using resources.

The end goal of the game itself is to generate as much food as possible in a limitied amount of time, but the overall message is that good intentions can have bad consequences. In this case, the bad consequence is that the rainforest is being deforestated by the player. At the end of the game, the player is presented with both how much food was gathered, but also the damage done to the rainforest and its biodiversity.

HOW?

By using a critical design approach, our hypothesis is that this kind of quick change in emotion, presumably going from happy to sad, can have a larger impact on the player's reflections on these kinds of large-scale problems. Our hypothesis is also that the feeling of actively being part of the problem, rather than just being presented with it, has a better chance of leading to a transformative experience.

WHY?

We are constantly being presented with facts that tell us that our lifestyles has a poor impact on the environment, but how much of that information does really have an impact on the way we go about our lives? We believe that being presented with facts is not enough for us to change our habits, but that actively being part of the problem and immediately seeing the consequnces of our very own actions can be, even if it's only in the form of a game.

Jesper Olsson

jespols[@]student.chalmers.se

Felix Franzén

ffelix[@]student.chalmers.se

Simon Lindkvist

simlindk[@]student.chalmers.se

Carl Nätterdal

carlna[@]student.chalmers.se

Kittipon Chaikittiwanich

kittipon[@]student.chalmers.se

Developed at Chalmers University of Technology, 2017