It would be great to have games festival solely focused on sustainability and ecology. And guess what? There is such festival in Poland.
Green Games. Games for Sustainability (Zielone Gry. Gry dla Zrownowazonego rozwoju) organized by the Centre for Systems Solutions (CRS) took place on 4th of April 2016. Sunny weather and the promise of entertainment and educational value encouraged more than hundred people to come join CRS and other exhibitors in playing for sustainability.
The festival was a part of the Green Games project, which we’ve already written a little about when we mentioned the Lords of the Valley: board game.
Festival was composed of 4 different parts.
Firstly, we had game workshops. There participants could learn how to play and moderate games from CRS. You can moderate at least 2 of them, Climate Game and About that Forest, with the Centre for Systems Solutions Games Platform.
Another point of the programme were big game workshops where CRS’ leading facilitators presented the gameplay of longer games such as mobile Lords of the Valley or Energy Transition Game.
Finally, festival visitors could take a breather in open gameplay area where everyone could join one of the games presented by organizations which decided to join the event, like CIWF with their interesting game Your Farm.
Most of the games at the festival had an environmental and biodiversity themes. But there were more subjects raised, including common pool resources, cooperation, economic, social justice or risk management. To put it simply, there were enough meaningful games with different subject matters to answer to the majority of the SDGs. Furthermore, everyone who came by to check out the festival received Green Games publication with articles from Pablo Suarez, Ian Bogost, and many others, which hopefully, will soon be available in English.
Watch Green Games Festival Report!
It is always nice to see people interested in teaching about sustainability through games. And it seems like we can expect another Games for Sustainability festival next year. According to the main organizators, the festival garnered enough attention to organize second edition.
