Group avatar

Educational Games

Public Group, active 18 hours, 45 minutes ago

This group is dedicated to the making and discussion of Educational Games. Educational Games can be any game that is designed to teach something to the player, be it Skills, [...]

full description

This group is dedicated to the making and discussion of Educational Games. Educational Games can be any game that is designed to teach something to the player, be it Skills, Information or Concepts using any game design method.

Tags: education practical history teaching learning learn
excerpt
Group Admin
  • Avatar Image
Moderators
  • Avatar Image

Water Management Educational Game Concept – ”Dry Heat” (6 posts)

← More Topics in This Group
|
  • Avatar Image Megan Stevens, a level 2 monster with 3 posts — 4 months, 2 weeks ago:

    As part of my senior innovation project, I am creating a concept for a game designed to teach middle and high school age students in the Phoenix area about water utilities and sustainable management.

    In Dry Heat players are put in charge of managing the water supplies of the desert town of Dry Heat, AZ. They accomplish this task through a combination of writing water use legislation, constructing new water supply and treatment facilities and educating the in-game public. Along the way they will learn what it takes to construct a successful drought management plan and water conservation plan as demonstrated by the water use plans of the city of Phoenix and affiliates.

    I have a draft of the design document completed, but I’m looking for feedback from more experienced developers about refining the content. I’m also developing a proof of concept paper to go with the pitch, so if anyone has worked with games of this type or in a similar environment, let me know what your experiences were like there. Do you feel that this is a workable concept for a game, what do you feel are its strong and weak points and how would you suggest improving them?

    Here’s the design document as it currently stands: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R3kjhb_FGFecrAbv0lV7J2KPIvih3VULi42RFzfzAtU/edit

    | #
  • Avatar Image Manfred Macx, a level 0 monster with 10 posts — 4 months, 1 week ago:

    I think writing legislation would be a bit of a reach – that’s free form, right? How is this turned into actual playable options?

    Sounds like you’re more interested in doing a water manager’s simulation with the first order goal of getting the players to think about the inputs (canals, wells) and the outputs (drinking, industry, lawns?).

    Maybe have it staged time wise – first play as things are now, then later give the
    players a chance to pick several legislative proposals – reduced watering/conservation, rainwater capture, recycling, etc, then let them see how things work after the policies are implemented.

    So you need to catalog the policy controls (price, explicit regulation), the inputs (canals, wells, rainwater if you have harvesting, etc), think about policy packages that could be added/subtracted.

    Just thinking out loud here.

    | #
  • Avatar Image Megan Stevens, a level 2 monster with 3 posts — 4 months ago:

    Thanks for the suggestions. Like I said, design work is new to me so any kind of help is appreciated.

    | #
  • Avatar Image Pam Broviak, a level 6 monster with 7 posts — 4 months ago:

    There are some other dimensions to water management that you could include if you were looking for additional elements. For example, another policy decision is to study and implement system improvements that minimize water loss. Each community has a water supply system with losses that I’ve seen sometimes reach 40% or more. So minimizing this loss can be important, but it costs money. So perhaps the “player” can be presented with the decision to fund new meters that better measure and report usage. Or automatic meter readers that report usage in real time and can be accessed by the user so they can adjust their usage based on this data. Or the utility can invest in water loss equipment or contractors who regularly test for leaks. Each one of these decisions has a cost, but each also has the potential to significantly impact the amount of water pumped into the system.

    Because adequate funding is so important to properly run the utility and manage water usage, there can also be policy decisions that impact the revenue. Such as “should the utility give discounts or free water to non-profits, churches, schools, etc.” or “should the utility give discounts to people with financial hardship?” And the game can reflect the effect of each of these decisions which can be both financial and operational.

    Also economic development choices play into this. If a large water user who can potentially employ 500 people or who would pay significant taxes or service fees wants to locate in that community, will the utility agree to serve them, and what effect does this have financially, politically, and operationally?

    Those are just a few more ideas if you were looking to expand the decisions presented in the game.

    | #
  • Avatar Image James, a level 5 monster with 3 posts — 4 months ago:

    I think that with research the ‘writing legislation’ element could be broken down into a collection of actions that can be performed by a player.

    The one that springs to mind for me (mostly because in the UK it’s about the only drought measure we ever have) is the “hosepipe ban” that prevents watering plants with clean water. If the player is presented with a “hosepipe ban” action, then using it would immediately reduce the town’s water consumption – but over time the benefit would diminish as the population tires of the water department’s overzealous attitude and begins to flout the ban to save their prize lawns!

    | #
  • Avatar Image Zoe Novaczek, a level 7 monster with 2 posts — 3 months, 4 weeks ago:

    I think the legislation issue is absolutely doable. It can even be rolled in with a set of other actions that could be taken. So you might have a choice between legislation, which will implement quickly if it succeeds, or education, which is slower but sure- and you might need to reach a certain level of public support to unlock of allow more extreme legislation.

    What I don’t see in the design document is a discussion of interface. To be a usefully realistic simulator, you’re going to have a lot of data to show the player, and managing that and unfolding it in a way that isn’t confusing or overwhelming will make a big difference. Since there are plenty of actions that affect more than one variable, sometimes in ways that shouldn’t necessarily be obvious to the player when they do them(and that’s a decision that needs to be made; for example do you quantify or even discuss the possibility of non-compliance with legislation before the player takes the action, or let them find it out somehow, and is that a variable that can be predicted before they take the action or will they have to try it and see, and learn to recognize the pattern for themselves between compliance and other values- such as education, level of enforcement, ect…)

    I would recommend taking a look at Fate Of The World if you haven’t already. It’s a global climate change simulator, with the player in a similar position of making decisions about policy and priorities. It’s a fun game on balance, but it suffers from exactly that issue- lots of data that’s often difficult to find and interpret. There has fairly recently been a rerelease with improved interface, and the changes they made from the original may have some value to you in how to approach the problem in Dry Heat.

    | #