To introduce Serious Games, I played Stop Disasters!, a game created by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). In Stop Disasters!, the player modifies a city tilemap to protect against different natural disasters. Modifications include educating locals, creating infrastructural evacuation points, investing in natural defenses, and/or building fortifications. In allowing the player to manipulate the tilemap, the game utilizes Expression as a primary form of play, whilst the budgetary and default restrictions also introduce light challenge to expand upon the game’s replayability and learning.
In considering the applications of the MDAO framework in Stop Disasters!, the intended outcomes shine out quickly: to provide information/raise awareness of natural disaster prevention, and change behaviors away from disaster recovery to reducing risk. To achieve this outcome, the game implements mechanics of a manipulable tilemap of a city to protect, a limited budget, obstacles to remove, buildings to build, and options for reinforcement and preventative measures.
Additionally, as one builds, they uncover key facts about natural disaster safety that they can internalize and apply while they continue map manipulation.
This mechanic of gradual exposure to facts creates a dynamic where player curiosity gets rewarded with advice on how to prevent natural disaster damage—doubling as both an informational reward on how to improve at the game, and serving as conducive towards the overall outcome of providing real-world information in a digestible fashion.
Generally, this dynamic of gradually provided information allows the player to continue discovering as they play, creating a gameplay loop where the player can discover more facts, and invest more time into the city. As stated earlier, player investment into their city builds towards an aesthetic of expression and challenge to engage the player without alienation. While the player experiences their own expression, it elicits within the player a desire for “their” constructed city to fare well from the disaster—players become more attached and wish for their invested work to fare well.
Notably, meeting the game’s requirements for buildings can still result in individual deaths/destruction, inspiring the player to replay for a better score and test learned knowledge of natural disaster prevention, or explore and learn new harm-reduction techniques.
Although I ended up once softlocking the game by expending my budget without completing the bare minimum requirements (whoops, there’s no undo button!), I still internalized disaster techniques while building and would surely deem the game successful in its mission of informing the player without compromising fun.
