Meet NET Zero, the card game, where you get to join me in turning one of the world’s biggest obstacles into a table conversation starter. Together, digitally, we will go through the design processes and ideate resolutions to answer future concerns.
To achieve this, will require extensive research and reading. Each week I will set out to research a different industry alongside the knowledge I learn from weekly content. With this, I will incorporate it into the NET Zero online presence.
Games as a platform in the past have had immense research in the way that has helped promote global awareness and social change, in particular younger generation audiences. Playing 4 the planet is an initiative partnered with UNEP that strives towards decarbonising the gaming industry, surveying that 81% of video gamers agree about wanting to see more environmental actions in games.
Games enable players a sense of agency (Eng, D. 2020), where through their decisions they dictate what actions to make in the “game world”, which in this case is a simulation of our current state. To reach a decarbonised future players will act on what they need to do to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
To quickly imagine what NET Zero, will aesthetically look like, I will be using a SolarPunk aesthetic, with vivid greenery to avoid an anthropogenically stark future. Oygardslia, K (2015) suggests strong imagery is most effective in promoting global awareness through games due to the visual rhetoric it creates.
As this is my last semester, I believe my digital literacy skills are even more refined, allowing me to venture and create quick imagery and video with programs like Illustrator and After Effects. With the new advancements in artificial intelligence, ChatGPT can assist me immensely in copywriting generation granted I fact-check the solutions to things such as answering deforestation on cards. AI art through platforms like dream.ai and Midjourney can conceptualize draft game imagery such as world-building and storytelling thus bringing this idea to life. An artificially intelligently made card game.
For example, the four topics I will currently be focusing on are renewables, transportation, deforestation, and policy. I asked ChatGPT what strategies a player can act on to reduce deforestation in their local government.
I discovered Australia for example, has lost almost 50% of its rainforest in the last 2000 years and has the highest amount of extinct animal species compared to anyone else. What Australia would need to do most is support indigenous communities and take in serious policy-changing efforts, currently being pursued by the Albanese government. Australia would have a high red score for deforestation and would need solution 1 and 2 to resolve that. Further refinement will be made along the way.
NET Zero may open other opportunities for students who wish to collaborate, featuring an industry analysis they’re hard focusing on in to the game while gaining more exposure together.
As this can seem like a large project, to avoid risks I will be breaking it down into smaller tasks to be more manageable.
Can your country hit NET Zero Before 2050?
References:
Eng, D. 2020. What is Player Agency? Retrieved March 17th, 2023, from <http://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/8/20/what-is-player-agency>
Klimmt, C. 2009, “Serious Games and Social Change: Why They (Should) Work”, in Ritterfeld, U., Cody, M. and Vorderer, P. (eds.) Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effect, New York: Routledge. Retrieved March 17th, 2023.
Oygardslia, K. 2015, Computer Games for Promoting Global Awareness: Methods and Modes, Academic Conferences International Limited, Reading. Retrieved March 17th, 2023, from <https://www.proquest.com/docview/1728409586?accountid=15112&parentSessionId=S5wtjIyjjeLl4cHaAC1qXHgFtXkK5eG%2Fm9HCNKsGC9U%3D&pq-origsite=primo>
Made By Andrea 
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