Rising Tides
Material and graphic design for a water-based board game
The Idea
The Idea
During a 48 hour hackathon, I worked on a unique board game to teach people about climate change and the Green New Deal. Our team came up with the idea of a game that utilized actual water, to show how rising sea levels might affect the United States. The challenges of making a water-based board game were many, but in the end my design contributions won us "Best Aesthetic"!
Games for Our Future
Games for Our Future
This game was made during the Games for our Future hackathon, which challenged participants to make a game that taught players about an aspect of climate change or the Green New Deal. This deeply resonated with me, as combining games and education was something I had a passion for.
Gameplay
Gameplay
Rising Tides functioned as a collaborative resource-collection game, where players would navigate the map attempting to pass Green New Deal initiatives. Every turn, the game tub would be filled with more water, resulting in some cities becoming submerged and inaccessible.
Card Design
All of the game cards were laminated to make the water-safe, and used colors and iconography to convey the positive impact of Green New Deal initiatives.
City Tiles
City Tiles
I had to be creative with the game board so that it was easy to set up and, more importantly, held up while underwater. I cut out acrylic hexagon tiles which were then affixed to the board using a series of washers and magnets. This let us represent different elevations of cities as well, which was important to accurately show how some cities were more at risk than others.
Impact
Impact
It was wonderful to see how players reacted to the game. Every round, players would draw a disaster card and fill the game tub with more water, resulting in the "destruction" of certain city tiles. This elegantly connected the issues of climate change to players' own lives, and made them realize the importance of the Green New Deal initiatives.