How do you make neighbourhoods more resilient to extreme weather events?
By letting citizens create their perfect garden and have them compete for the best, most climate proof garden.
Residents who sign up for the Garden Battle will enter a digital twin city, an online platform where all streets and homes in their city can be seen as building blocks. Participants can look up their own street and home in that digital city and claim their own garden there. Those who have claimed their garden can get to work. The mission is to redesign your own garden as climate-proof as possible. You compete against your neighbors, but you can also score as a neighborhood. Will the city center district win from the urban district or vice versa?
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Project goal
Develop a game for the digital twin city of Zwolle which entices residents to collectively redesign their environment to become more climate-proof, both virtually and in the real world.
Garden Battle
The climate adaptation game is played comfortably on the couch or in the garden in sessions of about 30 minutes, several times a week. During these sessions, players can freely experiment with their garden to see what would look nice, but also what is climate-proof. The player has to deal with a variety of weather conditions and make sure their garden withstands them all. The ultimate testst are extreme rainfall, prolonged drought and extreme heat that the player can simulate with a simulation. Thus, players become aware of the effects of climate resilience on their garden and the neighborhood.
From within the game, players can directly view and purchase the items they want to place in their real garden. All garden designs are also linked to ARCgis which shows how climate resilient a neighborhood is. This motivates players not only to design a climate-proof neighborhood, but also to put their money where their mouth is and make their own garden more climate-proof.
Platform and distribution
The game is suitable for laptop/desktop or tablet. Those who have claimed their garden can immediately redesign their own garden and now as climate-proof as possible. You compete against your neighbors and can score as a neighborhood. In addition to your garden, you can also design public spaces. You can then share these, but they are also viewed by the municipality of Zwolle.
Availability
In 2021, Zwolle’s pioneers have been competing for the most beautiful, climate-proof garden and public space. During this competition, Garden Battle players created designs of gardens and public spaces in the Wipstrik and Stadshagen neighborhoods to improve the climate resilience of these neighborhoods. After this has been tested on a small scale, the Garden Battle was rolled out across Zwolle to measure the effect compared to the surrounding neighborhoods. Every Zwolle resident had acces to this game for a limited time to learn how to make their own garden climate proof and to design a beautiful garden or public space that is also climate proof. The Garden Battle provides insight into how best to design your garden to prevent damage from extreme showers, heat and drought. And, of course, to enjoy a green, pleasant outdoor space. This pilot project has ended for now and the results are being analyzed.
Client
Learn more
Tim Laning
Business developer
Do you want to know more about the possibilities of serious games? Let’s discuss what serious games can do for you.
