Games4Sustainability
Forest
Policy voting
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About that forest is a web-based role-playing simulation game that takes place in a forest and the community that lives in it. Participants take the role of people living in the forest. They try to achieve their goals, facing many challenges, interacting with the decisions made by other people living in the forest and an uncertain environment. The village where the community lives is located by the river that runs through the mountainside. Because of that, the village is exposed to floods that are caused by the rainfall. Forest has a capacity to absorb the rainfall. The bigger the forest is, the more rainfall it can absorb. Rainfall that is not absorbed by the forest gets to the river and causes floods. Floods cause financial losses for the community members. These losses are distributed unequally between the community members. Players don’t know how much money other community members have exactly, but they can see how wealthy the others are.

Gameplay

To play the game, gather friends or join an existing session. You can play with a group in the same room or via the Internet, communicating with other players through the in-game chat. Players make decisions that affect the common good their community shares: a piece of land with forest that grows on it. They can harvest trees, use non-timber forest resources, plant new trees and monitor other community members. Performing each action uses certain amount of time per each year. Players can benefit from the patch of land in two different ways: they can either harvest it, or use it.

Harvesting trees allows them to make money. Harvest yield depends on the forest stage – the older the trees are, the more money player gains. By harvesting a patch player destroys the forest on it. Players can also make money by using non-timber forest resources, but it’s significantly less profitable. Yield from forest use depends also on the forest stage. By using the patch players don’t destroy the forest on it.

Forest regenerates with a certain recruitment rate proportional to the overall forest condition – this means that new trees sprout on empty patches – the more trees around the more new seedlings each round. Players can plant trees on the patches and in this way support natural regeneration of the forest.

Players can also monitor other members of their community. Performing monitoring action reveals the actions of randomly selected community member. Players can vote for policies that determine the forest management rules.

NOTE: These settings can be easily modified by the moderator (e.g. forest use or monitoring can be disabled).

Context

An experimental game exploring effectiveness and stability of policies for management of common goods.

Benefits

Learn practices that create a sustainable system in any environment, business or organisation.

Practice strategic and leadership skills.

Experience complex organizational reality.

Align goals, negotiate and coordinate actions

Explore effectiveness and stability of policies for management of common goods.

Trivia

You can play simplified version of this game by registering for open session on our page. You can also use our Games Platform to create your own session.

Price

Free for non-comercial purpose.

Number of players

more than 10 players

Number of moderators

1 moderator

Duration

1-2 hours

Languages

Technical requirements

one computer or tablet per each player or team of players, with current version of Google Chrome browser installed

How to run this game?

To play/ run this game go to the game’s webiste and contact it’s creators.

Did you play the game?

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We might post it on our blog page.

Contact us at: contact@games4sustainability.org

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