Planspiel-Literaturdatenbank des ZMS

Abstract: These environmental and social challenges of the Anthropocene require us to imagine and implement alternatives to the current global economic organization. Accounting in biophysical flows (material, energy, land use, …) is one grid of analysis providing insights on the alternatives’ sustainability (strong sustainability and ecological economics frameworks). These tools are indeed relevant to highlight systemic effects (interdisciplinary understandings, spatial and temporal scales) on resources and important pressures to consider for the transformation of territories. If this biophysical flow vision may be very useful, it however remains for expert use only. However, one of the challenges of transition territories is to involve the populations in participatory processes in order to put their knowledge, wishes and specific capacities for action in synergy. Among the several participatory tools, serious games have long since proven their ability to sensitize to sustainability issues, facilitate learning and support changes. This paper presents an exploratory work to get insights on how playing with material and energy flows, fostering biophysical accounting and systemic vision learning to support stakeholders in territories’ transitions. A first work on literature aims at understanding how resource flows are involved in existing sustainability games. We then present three experiments we made to play with material and energy flows analysis: one first game focusing on biophysical accounting, two games aimed at pointing out systemic effects on resources and three workshops in which an energy flow analysis diagram was discussed with stakeholders in a territory involved in resource management participatory process. 

Abstract: Collaboration is a critical factor for a team to be successful. Current practices to measure collaboration potential include methods that are outdated, cumbersome or error prone, and therefore often inapplicable in many settings. Games have been increasingly applied to assess a variety of skills and the popularity of multi-player games makes them a strong alternative for measuring the collaboration potential of a team. We propose Mirrors in Smog City, a novel serious game in which the final score is explicitly conceived as a proxy for the collaboration potential of the players. This multi-player collaborative game is designed for simplicity and accessibility, so that it can be used by very diverse teams in many settings, with minimal on boarding. Although the current prototype still needs a thorough evaluation, our preliminary assessment has concluded that the current design seems to be well-suited for assessing the collaboration potential of its players. Apart from the small sample size, a thorough evaluation will also need to include a benchmark with an objective and, if available, standardized method for assessing collaboration potential. 

Abstract: Designing local energy transitions is becoming an important question for local governments all around Europe. Negative perceived impacts of energy projects on local communities have frequently sparked opposition. Citizen resistance is often fed by feelings of recognition, distributive or procedural injustice. To give policymakers insight into these, (hidden) injustices, we designed the “Just Solar Panels” serious game. The game aims to make players experience how it feels to be participating in a participatory process from the perspective of different archetypes. The player are expected to balance daily personal tasks, needed to stay happy with processing and acting upon municipal information in a limited amount of time. The stated aim is to maximise points that represent general wellbeing The roles and tasks are designed in a way that are unfair in a non-obvious way. This mimics reality where citizens with the same information and opportunities to participate may not be able to do so because of systemic injustices. The game was played in three sessions with students, academics and industry and policy experts. The debrief was focused on eliciting experienced inequalities between players in the game and relating these to reality. The game successfully allowed players to experience injustices and relate these to reality, increasing their understanding of how seemingly just participatory processes can be unjust. In the future, the game should be further developed to enhance its use as a tool for learning and building capacity for change in organizations towards a more just local energy transition.