For this foray into experiencing a teaching game, I played the game Stop Disasters! by UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Stop Disasters! is about disaster preparation, and more specifically forces the player to consider the associated considerations, risks, and tradeoffs. This game’s primary aesthetics are challenge and narrative. The challenge comes from the player’s experience of being presented with a list of objectives they must complete and a ticking clock until the simulated disaster will strike. The player also has to minimize casualties and minimize destruction of property. All of these factors come together to create a challenge for the player.
The game’s other aesthetic of narrative, while less strong, is still pervasive. When you first begin the round you are informed that you are the new city planner in charge of protecting the area, and when you finish you are presented with a note that directly credits or blames you for the destruction caused.
The central mechanic to this game is building: the player can select on a tile and choose a structure or building to create. The buildings help you house people which achieves the set goals. But building costs money. Combined with the mechanic that there is a limited supply of money, an all-important dynamic arises: budgeting. The player’s experience with this dynamic directly contributes to the challenge aesthetic.
There’s also the mechanic that only one structure/building can occupy a tile. Additionally, some tiles are more susceptible to damage from the forthcoming natural disaster. Thus, in addition to budgeting money, the player has to budget space, deciding which buildings are a higher priority and should go in the most protected spots.
One element of the game is the “Key Facts” that are unlocked once you perform a specific action. Below, you can see a fact about the sea walls.
One of the tradeoffs of sea walls, according to this fact, is the that they are disruptive to the natural environment. In another fact, he talks about how they are unsightly. However, these “Key Facts” aren’t really a mechanic because they don’t directly interact with any other element of the game. There is no penalization to my score and it doesn’t hurt my goals if the town I build is ugly or if I disturb the natural environment. In pursuit of a good score, this lead me to create the following formation:
The packed-in hospitals and hotels surrounded by the sea walls would be terrible in practice, but in the game there’s no direct consequence except if I were internally motivated to keep the town pretty. Since I found my motivation to be external, as I was more focused on saving lives than anything else, I didn’t care how impractical or silly this looked.
Ultimately, this is a game about tradeoffs in preparation for natural disasters. While some of these tradeoffs are baked in as dynamics, other tradeoffs are acknowledged in this off-to-the-side, not-really-part-of-the-game manner. I found the lessons baked into the game much more compelling than the ones that were just told to me as an addendum. (In fact, I was a little confused and then frustrated when the “key facts” had information that was irrelevant to the game itself.)
I believe that the objective of this game involves behavior change, attitude, and information. Through the principal mechanic of budgeting, the player learns more about the intricacies and difficulties of preparing for a disaster (information) which may make them more understanding and aware of what’s going on regarding real natural disasters (attitude). Since the player has now empathized with the difficulties of planning for disasters, they may be more likely to vote to raise taxes to go to disaster prevention or directly donate to disaster relief organizations.
