| 1.The Whale Game |
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26/Apr/2008 |
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The Whale Game is a point and click 'board' game. Players observe the health of several oceans, test the DNA of whale meat bought in Japan or Iceland, and encounter hostile whaling fleets, hurricanes or typhoons, tsunamis, industrial fishing fleets, fishers using destructive driftnets, rogue waves, and many kinds of ocean pollution, including oil spills, plastics, sewage, fertilizers, and toxic chemicals.
They try to divert a naval fleet heading for a collision with a pod of whales and witness titanic struggles between whales and giant squid. They must also accurately identify any whales they see.
When they return home, they present their data and observations to the world community. Hopefully, whales and their ocean habitat will be protected!
Players will learn a lot of world geography; the game has a comprehensive glossary and information to help players make their decisions. Players will also learn how whales and their ocean habitat are threatened in many ways and how those threats could be dealt with.
The game has three sections. In the first, players must plan and organize an expedition; in the second, they plan their voyage; and in the third they sail the world's oceans to gather the data they need.
Games can be saved at any point and continued later. Each game is rated, so players can compete with each other or try to improve their own scores.
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| 2.The Rhino Game |
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26/Apr/2008 |
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The Rhino Game, a point and click game for Windows, describes the plight of the northern white rhino. This critically endangered rhinoÂ?s population is so small it is unlikely to avoid extinction.
YouÂ?re a crime reporter for a newspaper in Beijing planning a series of articles on the smuggling of poached rhino horn. You hope the articles will persuade governments to end rhino poaching before northern white rhinos become extinct.
You begin your research for the articles by finding ways to contact smugglers.
The smugglers confirm that rhino horn sold in China is from critically endangered northern white rhino killed by poachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The horn is smuggled to China through ports in Sudan. You make travel plans
based on your editorÂ?s promise you can go to Africa to investigate the poaching and smuggling if your travel plans wonÂ?t make smugglers aware of your purpose.
When youÂ?ve completed your travel plans, you apply for a visa to Sudan. You must think of a reason for your visit acceptable to SudanÂ?s government.
You hire guides and rent trucks, horses, and donkeys in southern Sudan. On your way to Garamba National Park in Congo to document the activities of rhino poachers you may be attacked by rebel militia, your trucks may be stuck in mud or break down or be stolen, or elephants may charge your convoy.
In Garamba, you may encounter hostile rhino horn poachers, suspicious park
rangers, inquisitive European TV crews, cruel wildlife smugglers, greedy bush meat traders, angry elephants and hippos, and indigenous peoples whose lives have been ravaged by war.
You could be attacked by elephants in musth or rhinos protecting their young, find yourself in a river with angry hippos, try to rescue a rhino from a minefield, try to hide from, or even shoot down, spotter planes, or witness a fight between a rhino and an elephant. You or your guides might suffer tropical diseases or your donkeys and horses could become ill. If things go really wrong, youÂ?ll have to leave as quickly as possible!
You try to smuggle any rhino horn you obtain through Sudan to China. You must choose to either pay bribes or risk losing your horn to bandits and smugglers.
If the horn reaches China and isnÂ?t found in customs and police checks, you
compare its DNA to that of rhino horn you found in Beijing. If the DNA matches, it will prove horn from critically endangered rhinos is smuggled from Congo to China.
YouÂ?ll add this to other evidence - such as names of smugglers and your count of rhinos Â? which might persuade the world community to save the northern white rhino.
There is an illustrated glossary (more like an encyclopaedia). The game is suitable for middle school or older players, or anyone interested in environmental issues, especially those related to endangered species.
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| 3.The Mapinguari Game |
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26/Apr/2008 |
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The Mapinguari Game has three sections. In the first, players must plan an expedition to the Amazon. In the second section, they must organize their expedition in the rain forest and establish relationships with the indigenous peoples.
In the final section, players collect photographs, video, audio recordings, samples of droppings, and DNA and blood samples etc. as evidence of Mapinguari's existence, hoping to persuade the world community to protect the animal by protecting its habitat - the tropical rainforests - and, therefore, saving the forest's indigenous peoples and their cultures.
On daily treks through the forest they play mini-games in which they face hostile ranchers, farmers, loggers, and gold miners, tropical diseases and infestations of parasites and insects, campaigns by skeptical scientists to discredit them, floods and fires threatening their camp, and attacks by anacondas, jaguars, and piranhas.
Players will learn a lot about the geography of the Amazon, its fauna, and the peoples who live there. There are mini-games within the main game in which players try to collect evidence or deal with a problem.
Players can save a game and complete it at their convenience. Games are ranked, so players can compete with other players, or try to improve their own scores.
The game has a comprehensive glossary and numerous sources of information on the Amazon and related environmental issues.
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| 4.The Climate Change Game |
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03/Mar/2009 |
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Players in ?The Climate Change Game? look for solutions to problems caused by climate change. At the beginning of each game a player is given random values for his/her level of Voter Support, his/her tax revenues, global greenhouse gas emissions, and the Earth?s temperature. The player must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a ?safe? level and Earth?s temperature to a ?comfortable? level while keeping the support of the majority of voters and receiving adequate tax revenues to implement decisions.
To achieve these goals, players can choose to make randomly presented Decisions to change the energies they use or use them in a different way, and Decisions about taxes; answer randomly presented Questions on Climate Change and related environmental topics; respond to random Natural Events (such as volcanic eruptions) which affect Climate; respond to People's Choices (unpredictable, popular human actions which impact Greenhouse Gas emissions and tax revenues), and random Economic and Political decisions by other countries that affect the global level of greenhouse gas emissions. Any topic can be researched using the comprehensive Glossary.
A player wins ?The Climate Change Game? ? and is rewarded with re-election - if he or she
- can help reduce global Greenhouse Gas emissions to the level required by the Kyoto
Protocol AND
- is not spending more money than his/her people pay in taxes, AND
- has maintained Voter Support of at least 51 percent AND
- Earth?s Temperature is ?comfortable" for life.
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