I played Stop Disasters, a game by the UN Office for disaster risk reduction. The game provides several options for disasters based in different locations around the world, from earthquakes to wildfires to tsunamis. Players enter the game as a city planner with a set of goals they must accomplish before the disaster takes place.
The game has several sets of constraints. When you pick a disaster, there are options for three levels of each disaster. The level corresponds to the budget you receive, the goals you must achieve, and the time limit you must work within. For example, I played the Medium Wildfire level that takes place in the arid plains of Australia. I had a budget of 50,000 dollars, a population of 450, and 20 minutes to complete my mission to protect the water tower, build two schools, and build one hospital.
This game is a simulation, so the fun comes from role-playing as the city planner and simulating preparing for a disaster by using your budget to buy housing, protection from wildfires, and build essential buildings. This Simulation-based play is also facilitated by light narrative elements, such as the advisor guiding you on your goals and presenting you with clear, in-game goals that are distinct from real-life goals but still present the message of urgency and challenge in preventing these disasters.
Each disaster provides a unique challenge and set of constraints to work with in order to prevent the disaster. The main dynamic of the game is the strategic planning and decision making you must do to try and prevent the disaster. The player is competing against the game that presents the threat of the natural disaster, and has a sense of urgency and constraints that limit their ability to easily achieve it, creating the challenge of the game. This challenge makes up the primary aesthetic of the game, as well as some elements of discovery as you explore a map for the first time and begin planning the city.
The mechanics of this game are based on a point-and-click grid based system. Players can click on tiles to be prompted with a set of possible actions. You can click the ‘i’ icon to get more information about the tile, the house icon to build housing for some cost, or the shield icon to build fire protection for some cost. Each tile has a risk score associated with it that can be viewed by toggling the “Show Risk” Button. Building housing or protection can affect this score, as well as removing bushes or dry trees from these tiles. The core gamplay loop is clicking on tiles, then clearing them and choosing to build something on the spot or leave it blank. The game ends when the timer hits its limit or the player runs out of money and chooses to start the disaster early.
Finally, the main outcome of this game is teaching players how disasters are prevented or created through city planning. Players learn about the risks associated with certain factor (ex., dry bushes increases fire risk). The game also has the outcome of affecting player attitudes towards natural disasters and understanding the actual severity of risk they hold, as well as highlighting the importance of disaster prevention techniques.
