Developing the game
Instead of only valuing the finished game, we also place a heavy weight on our game development process. This learning site highlights the importance of a reflexive game development process where we allowed our interactions from other researchers, students, local actors, and other game developers shape how we designed the game.
Gamifying concepts
In the game, we gamified several concepts: compound weather events, decision-making amid uncertainty, and science-society interface. The underlying challenge throughout the game is that players can only familiarize themselves with the whole system through time, experiencing different surprises, and negotiating with other players. Surprises that emerge from specific actions or a new farming season are critical aspect of the game that resembles reality, especially in the context of farming in a changing climate. While players strive for a sense of control and mastery, players get to experience how surprises brought about by different game elements challenges farmers’ existing knowledge and practices. Most importantly, in the game, players will be challenged by new combinations of hazards that had not occurred before (i.e., heatwave after a drought).
Impacts from compound weather events are highly challenging to foresee, especially when taking timing into consideration. The specific moment when a weather event happens can either make or break a farming season. In the game, two weather events are drawn from Season 2 onwards to simulate how different combinations of weather events can yield different impacts. Depending on the current farm state and active action cards, players either enjoy higher yields or lose a lot.
Science-society interface also plays a big role in the game. This element includes different potential ways how science can help farmers in their decision-making process. Depending on the scientific atmosphere drawn before the game begins, farmers can receive information or new tools from researchers. In an unfortunate scientific scenario, farmers would have to wait longer while also investing more before any scientific results can be used.
These dynamics are even further made more complex with surprise political decisions of the municipality that can affect farmers’ activities and access to water resources, aspects of (non-)collaboration among farmers, and potential benefits of farmer protests.
Lessons learned from other game developers
Inspiring participants into a game mode. Some participants might not be familiar or used to gamified learning. Taking this into consideration is important, especially that individual and group learning take place through their interactions and understanding of different choices and roles within the game. Some participants might need a quick introduction what playing the game entails or allowing them to practice the game multiple times before the actual gameplay. If the game entails roleplaying and negotiation, it can be helpful to set the tone by also starting off with the game narrative or scenario.
KISS (Keep it short and simple). It is best to take the gameplay time into consideration when designing the game and the actual sessions including the debriefing moment. How much time are we asking from the participants? How long is the game? How long is the debriefing or discussion session? Do we need them to play multiple times spread over a specific period of time? Our game can be played at maximum of 1.5 hours, and we spend another hour for debriefing session. This amount of playtime and interaction already allows participants to reflect on the game and on potential real life scenarios.
Game enhancers such as role playing and storytelling. Our game simulates a diversity of roles that allow players to be creative. Some farmers are given hidden agendas that shape their decisions throughout the game, while some farmers might start with lesser resources than most. Storytelling is also embedded in the gameplay as players try to make a story for their roles, especially when negotiating with other players or initiating new initiatives within the game.
Setting clear game objectives. Designing a game is an open process, so starting off the design process with the game objectives help ground the game developers. It is useful to ask: Who is the game for / who will play the game? What are the learning goals of the game? What interactions are useful for the players to understand the concept? What aspects of reality can be represented in the game and how? What do we expect the players to experience and to learn? Setting clear game objectives allow for a more focused game development process, and also allows players to better understand the concepts through the game mechanics.
Iterative design process. Feedback matters! We play tested our serious game with different groups of players - researchers, students, and NGOs - to get a sense of how the game experience will be like. The playtest sessions helped us improve the game dynamics, specifically for improving game mechanics and for seeing blindspots. Through the players’ feedback, we were able to improve the content of the card decks; adjust consequences so that players do not lose right after one farming season; expand the system by including relevant elements such as research; political interventions, and social protests; and improve facilitation strategy to encourage more participation and negotiation among the players. In this sense, each gameplay serves as a feedback session that helps our team understand how players grapple with the concepts, and how players find different strategies to make decisions amid uncertainty.