Adaptive and Interactive Futures: Developing “Serious Games” for Coastal Community Engagement and Decision-Making

Abstract

Serious games, or games or simulations that are used for purposes beyond entertainment, have been increasingly recognized for their potential to facilitate the exploration of value-laden and contested decisions and to support learning in diverse communities of stakeholders. By using serious games to address climate change, players can learn about complexities of climate change and simultaneously develop skills necessary for adaptation. In this way, players challenge their own existing beliefs about strategies that will work, confronting their own mental models, and removing potential barriers to adaptation action. Games also encourage players to practice a range of different skill sets and unlike performing these actions in real settings, where consequences could be detrimental to the wellbeing of the actor or others, the simulated environment offered by a game gives players the opportunity to learn, innovate and experiment with these actions, with consequences that are real in the game world but pose no threat in reality.