Design patterns to craft green messages into games and reduce production impact.

Erode Social License
Call out the corruption, deceit and propaganda of polluting industries, real or fictional, and help ruin their hard-won prestige in the real world!
Transactive Learning & Transformational Play
When player action significantly impacts the game world in ways that are visible and persistent, it can boost emotional engagement and sense of self-efficacy.
Collaboration
The act of collaborative problem solving (with players or NPCs) can greatly increase the effectiveness of a player’s learning experience.
Competition
At worst, competition without meaningful context has the risk of actively encouraging anti-environmental behaviors and thinking.
Intrinsic Integration
When understanding the target concepts is necessary to interact with the game, learning becomes fun.
Roleplay
Taking on the role of a character allows for low-risk experimentation with different points of view to which the player may otherwise not be exposed.
Forge Emotional Bonds with Nature
Helping ourselves feel connected to nature has been proven to help us feel happier, less stressed, and more creative.
Oil Ocean Zone
Associating your villain with fossil fuel production has always been a classy move.
Shinra: The Face of Colonialism
Final Fantasy VII provided us with one of popular culture's most devastating caricatures of capitalism, colonialism and greed.
Showcase a Climate Solution
Normalize real-world climate solutions by incorporating them into your world lore, story, and/or game mechanics.
Fossil-Free Survival
Survival games can think seriously about which methods of power generations are available to the player, and how they're portrayed.
Disgusting Dystopia
Plasticity presents a near future choking under plastic waste, designed with Forced Discomfort to make players react in disgust. In […]
Save the Sperm Whales
Beyond Blue has the player studying a specific pod of sperm whales and investigating sound pollution that disturbs their life.
Movement Building Games
Meet the games that lay the foundation for a new genre of movement building.
Locality & Local Knowledge
While limiting in its scalability, local games are highly focused and have shown significant, measurable impact on communities in a variety of contexts.
Investment in Specifics
Including specific places or developing named, fleshed-out characters can encourage emotional investment in protecting those places or creatures.
Conflicting Goals
Conflicting goals force the player to accept limited success, choose a goal to prioritize, or risk failure by riding the fence.
No-Win Scenarios
When used to consider real world situations, no-win scenarios can force a player to reconsider the validity of a solution they may take for granted.
New Goal Orientation
By working towards new, unfamiliar goals, players build empathy, learn, and think critically about solving real world issues.
Imagine a Sustainable Future
Unlike dystopias featuring urban decay and corruption, solarpunk helps us imagine worlds where crises are solved with camaraderie and ingenuity.
Facilitate Grief for the World
The climate crisis is a major existential threat that can be very overwhelming. Games and storytelling can help us process emotions into action.
The Tragedy of Galarian Corsola
When coral bleaching came to Pokémon.
Origins of Lanayru Desert
That time when Zelda offered an environmental parable.
Settle With Care
What does a settler game that takes environmental consequences into account look like?
Kind is the new Cool
Kindness can move mountains.
Repair, Re-use, Recycle
In-game economies can be circular economies - build player habits of repair and re-use, and raise the value of junk.
Irresistible Veggies
Cooking systems that dabble in plant-based food can both inspire and teach real recipes.
Stories from the Frontlines
We can tell the stories of those who live on the front lines of climate change, like in Never Alone […]
Solarpunk Games
Some games take place in worlds where humanity has already acted to solve the climate crisis, and it’s possible to […]
Building the Sustainable City
Cities Skyline: Green Cities manages to both Normalize Green Tech and Imagine a Sustainable Future by exposing players to modern […]
A Simpler Life
We can represent happy lives that do not rely on consumerism, to deprogram the toxic dream of buying ever more […]
In Awe of Nature
We can inspire players to Forge Emotional Bonds with Nature by showing it in all its beauty, using the power […]
The Sustainable Living Buffet
The SIMS 4: Eco Lifestyle acts like a tasting platter of individual climate action, where everybody can find little things […]
Community Cleanup Events
Many types of climate action are better tackled collectively, so games could encourage players to connect with other players to […]
Campaign Shout-outs
Players can be encouraged to support or contribute to climate organizations, like NGOs and charities.
Rewarding Real-Life Actions
In contexts where the intrinsic motivation of doing good deeds isn’t enough, we can also add an extrinsic motivation by […]
Building Emotional Resilience
Spiritfarer makes players practice grieving for the loved ones we lost, building their emotional resilience and training them for when […]