The Human Footprint on the Environment

The Climate Game: Can You Reach Net Zero? Part 2

This section will go into more detail about the game's secondary mechanic, "effort points" -- which function almost like stamina points would in some 3D games -- and how they complicate the player's agency by immersing them through the concept of uncertainty. In the chapter "Immersion" from the book Hamlet on the Holodeck, Murray writes about the methods of achieving immersion as well as its benefits. In a discussion about how immersion influences player interaction with the game, she writes, "The great advantage of participatory environments in creating immersion is their capacity to elicit behavior that endows the imaginary objects with life... such belief-creating virtual objects... heighten our sense of immersed participation by giving us something very satisfying to do"(Murray 110). The argument is that participatory environments like video games can give even imaginary objects "life" and "belief" through their influences on the game. I believe that "The Climate Game: Can You Reach Net Zero?" grants players immersive participation in a very similar way, except that the objects are not objects but rather decisions, and the "life" that is breathed into these decisions is based on the very real sense of uncertainty that the player is made to feel throughout the game. The picture below, for instance, shows one of the many, many choices the player makes throughout the game: 

t might seem like a good idea to spend ten points on closing all coal plants anyway since this will have such a big impact on CO2 reduction -- but what if a more important event comes up later and the player is unable to respond because they have already blown all their effort points? If the game was really just a simple trade-off game where the player was fully aware what they were giving up when putting effort into something, it would be a much more simple and much less meaningful experience. However, because the player has to step into the role of a real person who can't see the future, the player is forced to learn about the uncertainty that is always involved with making change. The idea of uncertainty is even more firmly introduced when the player reaches one of these scenes, where they have an opportunity to make an investment that the game itself tells you may or may not play out:

This is similar to a gamble, especially because most players will not have a solid grasp of what ideas are likely to work and what ideas are not. I argue that the purpose of this screen is not necessarily to teach about what methods the game creators believe will be effective, but to make people aware that many times making change can involve taking that gamble based on your own predictions or beliefs, even when the result isn't certain. From playing the game multiple times it seems generally that not investing is worse than investing even if the investing option sometimes fails; sometimes risks must be taken in the name of development. 

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