A playful dystopian game engaging players to actively come up with ways to slow down climate change and the effect it is having on earth and in particular marine-life.

Mapping Animal Migration is an educational game that encourages players to think about the difficulties animals face when travelling across the world and the measures people can take to make their crossings easier.
The playspace is made from a large map lit from behind by LED strips. There are six different animal migration routes for players to choose from. The game can be played by 1-6 players. Players move towards their destination by rolling the dice, following the legend key and looping string from one space to the next. Depending on what space you land on, you will be told to move backwards or forwards. If players land on "suggestion" space, they have to write a tip for protecting the planet on a paper fish and move forward two places. A round is finished once a player has completed a full migration route loop. Players can leave their string on the pins for other players to see how challenging their migration path was. Each time the game is played, the migration routes will build up on the map becoming part of the art piece. The number of suggestions for helping the planet will develop also the more the game is played.

Mapping Animal Migration , Soundtrack ‘Swimmers’, Zero 7 ft Jem Cooke

Concept
The current ecological crisis needs people to change their daily behaviours. This game is a creative way to get people to think of new habits they can make to reduce waste and have less have an impact on nature. The game is intended to be installed in a science gallery , aquarium, museum where visitors can play, read and learn from previous players’ tips on have to help protect the planet.

The aim of the game is to engage the player in an educational experience where they can understand just a few of the obstacles animals face while migrating as a result of climate change. There are different outcomes for each roll of the dice, with one space instructing players to ‘write out suggestions for protecting the planet’ so they can move forward 2 spaces.’

Design Process

This game took many different turns, the main being switching from a board game to a playable installation. After a lot of research I made this decision because it was more in line with my practice and I wanted to explore what could happen if I put part of the ‘creative act into the hands of the player/participant’ (Celia Pearce).

I initially had planned to use chance cards like a monopoly style game but I chose to use icons on the spaces instead so the main interaction is focused on the feedback when a player lands on the ‘Write a Suggestion” space.

Prototyping was especially important for the game, not only to make sure the climate change message was well communicated but also to make sure the players could move through the game in a logical sense. This meant experimenting with the different combinations of the icons on the board…initially I had thought of having each square have an icon or instruction but when testing it was clear that it was too confusing. If a player is told to move forward 2 spaces only to then land on an icon to tell them to move back 1 it becomes frustrating. There was a lot of testing done on the sequencing of the routes and as a result I included a few blank spaces in the migration routes (see images). As the game is intended to be played in an aquarium/science gallery style space I was conscious to make sure the game can be finished in a short amount of time, each round should take roughly 8 minutes provided you are not extremely unlucky with your dice rolls!

Each migration route is the same for all animals to make it fair when playing with more than 1 player. The element of chance is all in their roll of the dice each turn.

Initially I had planned to use magnets in the installation so players could move their counters along and attach them to the magnetic spaces. However, the feedback I had from my peers throughout the development of the game was crucial. The suggestion of leaving previous players migration routes on the map was very clever, it shows the players how much challenging/longer some of the previous migration routes were. It also attracts attention when visitors are passing, it does not look like an ordinary map.

These migration routes will develop each time the game is played along with the collection of fish under the installation meaning the artwork will continue to change and grow each time it is viewed or played.

Future Development
There are of course tweaks I would like to make to this installation, it would be great to add some additional physical computing elements such as sensors that changed the colour of the LEDs when you approached the piece
When a player landed on a specific space there could be a different sound played, waves crashing, whales breaching etc
Linking it up to real time events, or weather would be very exciting for players, elements such as seasonal patterns for the animals could come in to the mechanics of the game too.
Another option would be for users to submit their ’Suggestions’ online where they could look back at other people’s suggestions after they have left the gallery/aquarium.

 Research
•https://www.neefusa.org/weather-and-climate/marine-species-move
Flow State, Ranged Touch
https://www.museumnext.com/article/how-can-games-in-museums-enhance-visitor-experience/
Engaging with doom and gloom: the usefulness of dystopian games, Carien Moossdorff

Maps of the World
https://geology.com/world/world-map.shtml
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218309357#fig1

Art
Olafur Eliasson, how perspectives can change our views
https://www.designboom.com/art/olafur-eliasson-serpentine-galleries-earth-day-04-22-2020/