Abstract
Communicating knowledge about energy transition is a challenge of sustainable development. Serious games are a possible approach to explain complex relationships and present them to citizens. This paper discusses the development process of the serious board game “Changing the Game—Neighbourhood”. Therefore, this paper describes our approach of developing a serious game with co-designers in four phases and illustrates the process using an example. Doing so, the paper focus on two central challenges: (1) How can a serious game be developed for the energy transition, which keeps a balance between learning and playability? (2) How can co-design contribute to the development of a serious game? We found out that the use of prototypes and the influence of different stakeholders as informants, co-designers, and testers were crucial for the expansion of the learning content, the improvement of the gameplay, and the balancing of the difficulty level. In addition, the energy transition at the neighborhood level appeared to be a suitable topic for a serious game. During the development process, the serious game was already used for citizen participation, involving about 120 participants in 15 workshops.
Highlights
Serious games are an interactive communication tool that can be used to reduce energy consumption in households [1,2], to improve education regarding sustainability [3] and green buildings [4], and to inspire students to work towards sustainability and energy savings [5]
This paper focus on two central challenges: (1) How can a serious game be developed for the energy transition, which keeps a balance between learning and playability? (2) How can co-design contribute to the development of a serious game? this paper describes our approach of developing a serious game with co-designers in four phases and illustrates the process using an example
The interactions of the co-designers are described and how their feedback was implemented in the design and game mechanics of the prototype
Summary
Serious games are an interactive communication tool that can be used to reduce energy consumption in households [1,2], to improve education regarding sustainability [3] and green buildings [4], and to inspire students to work towards sustainability and energy savings [5]. With its climate protection program 2030, the German government has set itself the goal to cover 65 percent of the nationwide electricity consumption with renewable energy by 2030 [15] Concepts such as smart homes, smart grids, and smart districts as systems for networking and intelligent control of players in the energy industry gain importance as they bring energy production and consumption into harmony. (3) The involvement of stakeholders as active co-designers and informants from the beginning of the development process of a user interface showed the relevance of participation in the topic of energy transition. In the final version of the game, the players try to achieve the goals of the German government for the energy transition in a cooperative way These relate to a reduction in CO2 emissions and maximizing energy savings in the electricity, heating, and transport energy sectors.
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