The BBC has created an online flash game – climate challenge – in which the player is president of the “European Nations”. The player has to try to reduce green house gas emissions while maintaining the economy, energy, agriculture and water availability – while being re-elected. The game which also supports the warzone cheats,  is meant to illustrate what options are trade-offs are available to politicians, as well as the need to have policies at different aspects of society. However, some of the game mechanics and feedbacks are unclear (particularly how the economic part of the game works). Nevertheless the game is fun to try.

The game makers explain their rationale for making the game. They write:

The producers’ primary goal was to make a fun, challenging game. At times it was necessary to strike a compromise between strict scientific accuracy and playability. For this reason, Climate Challenge should not be taken as a serious climate change prediction.Apart from the primary goal of creating a fun game, Climate Challenge’s producers aimed to:

• give an understanding of some of the causes of climate change, particularly those related to carbon dioxide emissions.
• give players an awareness of some of the policy options available to governments.
• give a sense of the challenges facing international climate change negotiators.

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A nice interactive game on solving dilemmas between different stakeholders can be found at http://www.alwayssunny.com/lab/lindissima/.  The game is a simple-minded and optimistic story which is used as an excercise for people to learn the basics about scenario simulation, dynamical adaptive systems, sustainability attributes, multicriteria analysis, among others.  In the first act, slash and burn maize farmers  are compelled by the government to leave a biodiversity reserve zone and to intensify maize production in a smaller area using urea. The user plays the role of the farmer, explores scenarios and decides if he can sustain his family economy under the government´s proposal.

In act 2, rural families that depend on ecotourism in a clear lake downhill feel their income threatened by water murkiness caused by nitrogen coming into the lake from the maize farmer´s fields. As part of negotiation with uphill farmers, the user (now in the role of the lake-side dweller) needs to know how much N they can accept to run into the lake before it becomes murky. A number of simulations helps the user find out the limits (which of course depend on initial conditions in the bi-stable regime). Time series coupled with  parameter-sensitive cup and marble models that run as real time animations allow the user to better understand the cusp catastrophe involved

In act 3 farmers try to comply with such restriction imposed by the interests of the lake side people. The farmer, together with the lakesier and the government, first consider if its possible to do so under a maize moncrop system and later under a maize-leguminous shrub system. A simple agroforestry model is behind the curtains and the user currently has access only to a small set of its parameters.

Each act provides: the story with illustrations, a scenario simulator  based on minimalist dynamical models,  a number of excercises that must be solved before going further and a graphical tutorial.