Games, gaming technology, and game-based approaches have been a big part of my outreach and communications work. Professionally, I have worked on several game projects (see below) and founded the Earth Arcade and SeriousGeoGames projects. I also help convene the Games for Geoscience sessions and run the Gaming Environments network.

I enjoy games that feature a strong narrative that allow you to build your story and history over time. My favourite videogames are simulations like Football Manager and Cities: Skyline. My really passion though is for collecting, modelling, and playing narrative games of the Warhammer tabletop games.

Crabby’s Reef

Crabby’s Reef is a retro-arcade style game designed to highlight the problems for marine life caused my ocean acidification, based on the research of Dr Christina Roggatz and made in collaboration with her. The project was partially funded by an Outreach Award from the European Geoscience Union. Play Crabby’s Reef online here.

Resilience

Resilience is a card game that uses game-lay mechanics and artwork to help people understand issues around flood risk management. I initially conceived the idea for the game but my early versions were a bloated, overly-complex, mess relying on clip art. Kelly Stanford took the game on for her research investigating how art and games can be used together in science communication and vastly improved both the play and the style of the game.

Check out Kelly’s Resilience game here.