Natural disasters are too often presented as resulting from extreme natural
phenomena affecting helpless populations, with people being insufficiently
aware of the factors leading to disasters and of the existing strategies to
mitigate their impacts. We developed a board game aimed at raising awareness
about geohazards and disaster risk reduction strategies. The target groups
are (1) secondary school students and citizens and (2) scientists and
stakeholders involved in risk management activities. For the first group, the
aim is to induce a better understanding of the geohazards and disasters they are
confronted with in the media or in their daily lives; for the second, the
objective is to generate discussion about risk management strategies. The
game was tested with students in Belgium and with citizens, earth scientists,
and risk managers in several African countries. Based on analysis of the most
common game strategies observed, the players' reactions during the game, and
their answers to a short questionnaire, we analyzed the main learning
outcomes conveyed by this game. The game
Disasters causing havoc are repeatedly making the media headlines. However, the media generally focus on the natural component of disasters, giving less attention to the human factors shaping the outcomes of the event. Since the turn of the millennium, the scientific community and international institutions recognize that outcomes of disasters are mostly controlled by political, economic, social, physical, environmental, and stochastic processes rather than by the event intensity (United Nations, 2015; Wisner et al., 2003). Exposure and vulnerability to hazards is not the same for all humans (Wisner et al., 2003). The uneven burden of disaster victims in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa (Guha-Sapir et al., 2014), highlights that the political and socioeconomic context of natural hazard events is an essential factor contributing to the impact of disasters. This factor controls the capacity of the authorities to mitigate impacts based on scientific risk assessment and preparedness actions (United Nations, 2005). These same factors also influence the rights one individual or community has to access land and natural resources, wealth, information, and health (Wisner et al., 2003). Therefore, nowadays disaster reduction strategies focus not only on understanding and reducing hazards but also on increasing the resilience of societies (Smith, 2013; United Nations, 2015).
The conceptual understanding of the combination of factors that lead to catastrophes and the strategies to address them is not widely represented by the media and in layman discussions, and it is not always well understood by risk management actors. With that perspective, we present a new serious game that was created with the objective of (1) providing key scientific information about the mechanisms of geohazards, their intensity, spatial extent, and impacts on infrastructures, natural resources, and livelihoods; (2) highlighting the role played by the livelihood and the access to natural resources of families and communities in controlling their vulnerability profile; (3) triggering discussions on strategies that can be implemented to develop a resilient society able to withstand, and to cope with, the impacts of geological disasters. The game was designed to be accessible to a large audience of different age, culture, educational background, and experience.
Serious games are designed to support learning and raise awareness of important issues (Boyle et al., 2014; Pereira et al., 2014). Their main purpose is not entertainment but to use the potential of games to get people engaged and motivated in order to transfer knowledge (Susi et al., 2007). Indeed, the traditional learning cognitive approaches where people only think, analyze, comprehend, and learn by heart without trying, touching, and exploring are increasingly being considered as limited and restrictive (Dieleman and Huisingh, 2006). According to Montessori (1966) and Kolb (1984), the experiential approach is essential in the learning process. To learn, new concepts have to be exposed and people also need to be engaged, motivated, surprised, and challenged (Pereira et al., 2014; Turkay and Adinolf, 2012). Games have a positive contribution to the learning process because they are heuristic. The players can experience complex situations illustrated visually and test new strategies without having to deal with the real consequences of their decisions (Castella et al., 2005; Dieleman and Huisingh, 2006; Lamarque et al., 2013; Souchère et al., 2010; Susi et al., 2007). The fun environment induced by the game reduces anxiety and facilitates debate among people who are otherwise not always brought together. They can share knowledge, make collective decisions, and explore new strategies (Castella et al., 2005; Dieleman and Huisingh, 2006; Lamarque et al., 2013; Souchère et al., 2010; Susi et al., 2007). A game also helps the players to more easily link different processes that the game wants to illustrate (Pereira et al., 2014; Souchère et al., 2010). A game facilitates the development of new personal and social skills and the learning process of new concepts (Castella et al., 2005; Pereira et al., 2014; Susi et al., 2007).
Regarding these characteristics, gaming, as a learning approach, seems
particularly relevant in the context of understanding the challenges and
complexities involved in coping with natural disasters and increasing
resilience. For that reason, we decided to develop
In this paper, we first present the structure of the
The objective of the game
Keeping in mind that the game is a simplification of real life,
Setup of the game:
The game can be played with 5 to 10 players, at least 15 years of age. It
is led by a game master who follows instructions provided in the
Life on the island unfolds in years. A year corresponds to a round table during which players receive an income which can be used to (1) support their families' basic needs and (2) make investments. Each game year, the characters receive a specific income related to their livelihood and multiplied by their number of living families. That income is represented by different resource cards: bread, water, and bricks (Fig. 1c). Two additional resources, representing the variable part of the income, are obtained each year by rolling dice (Fig. 1d). To survive a year, each family has to be sheltered in a hut, a house, or a temporary tent, and its basic needs of food and water have to be met (i.e., one bread and one water per family). The player feeds and gives water to his families by giving the corresponding resource cards back to the game master. Alternatively, the families that are connected by a road to a water well or a food market (Fig. 1e) freely benefit from these resources and thus conserve their resource cards (Fig. 2). Once the basic needs (food, water, and shelter) are met, the rest of the income can be invested to further develop the character's families. Huts, houses, and roads can be built to expand only from the two initial settlements of each character (Fig. 1f). Development of these new infrastructures is spatially constrained for each player to the zones corresponding to his livelihood profile. These locations are marked on the board game using the color assigned to each (Fig. 1a). No color is assigned to the mayor and the tour guide because no land cover is related to their livelihood. Both characters can live wherever they want on the island. Each time a player establishes a new hut or a new house, he simulates the settlement of one or two additional families, respectively, on the island. The costs of infrastructure are defined by a certain amount and type of resources (Fig. 1g).
Huts (one family: blue) and a house (two families: red) with road access to a water well. Both yellow and green huts of the background access a food market through the joined road network. This allows these families free access to these resources.
Defining the hazardous event:
Geological hazardous events (i.e., earthquake, tsunami, lava flow, ash fall) occur on the island at variable time intervals. Each time interval is randomly defined by the game master but is not communicated to the players. Through an alarm, the players are informed of the occurrence of a hazardous phenomenon. Several geohazardous events in 1 year are possible. A probabilistic tree allows random selection of the type and intensity of the geohazard that will occur (Fig.3a). The intensity of hazardous phenomena is defined by an arbitrary three-level scale for earthquake, tsunami, and ash fallout, which corresponds to an increasing spatial extent and/or range of damage. This is not the case for a lava flow which has just one level of destruction (total destruction). The players then watch a video clip, with commentary provided by the game master, which illustrates the hazardous event impacts based on recent disasters. Based on the video clip and their knowledge, the players are invited to explain the mechanisms of hazards and to assess, depending on its intensity, its potential impacts on the elements present on the board game, the available natural resources, and the income of the different characters. An impact table helps them to represent schematically those impacts depending on different intensities (Fig. 4). As already mentioned, the spatial extent of each hazardous event is also defined, based on its nature and its intensity (Fig. 3b). For example, a tsunami of small intensity will only impact the huts located close to the coast. With larger tsunami intensity, impacts will occur at a larger distance inland and will cause more damage: huts will be destroyed and people living in these huts will be killed, water wells will be contaminated, and the fisherman will lose his income. The fallout from a volcanic plume will impact only one sector of the island due to wind direction controlling its dispersion. Fallout will cause pollution of the water wells and will potentially lead to the loss of income of the farmer and the lumberjack characters when ash fall affects the crops and the vegetation. With a high intensity ash fall, huts collapse due to ash loading on the roof and may kill the people living in these huts. After discussion, the defined impacts related to the hazardous event are implemented on the board game by removing the destroyed elements (i.e., huts, houses, roads), the killed families, by making the contaminated resources inaccessible (i.e., water wells, food markets) and by providing no income to the affected families in the following year (Fig. 3c). In this way, players virtually experience the impacts of the hazardous events through their character and they are directly confronted with the implications of decisions made during the game.
Potential hazardous event impacts when players are not protected. Impacts will be different for different hazardous phenomena intensities. A cross over an infrastructure means it is destroyed within the affected zone. A cross over a family indicates that the families living in the affected zone will not survive the hazardous event. Characters with a small cross suffer a loss of income for 1 year.
Game session information.
In order to reduce the impact of geohazards, each player has the opportunity to acquire “protective actions” which are categorized as mitigation (Fig. 3d), preparedness (Fig. 3e), and adaptation cards (Fig. 3f). Mitigation cards consist of awareness raising actions, monitoring, and warning systems which enable people to recognize the upcoming hazardous event and evacuate on time. The impacts on infrastructures are still incurred but lives are saved. This is only valid for hazards that may somehow be forecast with a proper monitoring system. Earthquakes are therefore excluded. Preparedness cards consist of stockpiling essential resources, such as water, food, or tents, in order to meet basic needs after being impacted by a hazardous phenomenon. Finally the adaptation cards allow the players to reinforce and protect infrastructure against the impacts of an earthquake, tsunami, or ash fallout.
Players can acquire protection cards individually, but they can also decide to take actions as a community. Individual protection cards require few resources but to be ready to face the various impacts of the different hazardous events, a player has to buy several of them. Moreover, individual protection cards can only be used by the owner of the card and cannot be shared to help another player in need. Community protection cards, however, require more resources, corresponding to the equivalent of three individual protection cards, but the cost can be shared among the players. The advantage is that less community protection cards are needed because they can be used efficiently by all characters within the sector facing a hazardous event. Once a hazardous event is taking place, players can decide to use their individual or community protection card to avoid (part of) the impacts. Once used, the card is no longer available to the players.
At the end of each year, the game master invites all the actors of the game
to discuss the development of the island and the need to make joint decisions
to develop the island or protect the entire community against hazards.
Community protection cards can be acquired during this discussion. If a new
strategy not defined within the
The game ends after a minimum of 5 years, which enables the players to
experience a large suite of different hazardous events and explore and refine
different mitigation strategies. They can also experience the same type of
hazardous event several times. At the end of the game, the resilience of the
community is evaluated using a resilience index that is calculated for each
individual character and at the community level (Eq. 1). The number of living
families with a permanent shelter and an access to natural resources, the
number of infrastructures which are still in use on the board game and the
amount of individual or community protection cards allow the players to gain
capacity points. Those points are then divided by the vulnerability points
that a player gets from the number of homeless, killed during the game, or
without access to resources families, and the number of infrastructures that
have been destroyed during the game. In addition, to evaluate the resilience
level reached by the community, the resilience index is also used to rank the
players and to generate discussion after the game. Strategies used by the
players are then reviewed to explain why a player has a higher index outcome
than another one.
A total of nine game sessions (75 players in total) have been organized in different countries (Belgium, Comoros Islands, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania) (Table 1). The African countries correspond to places where education and/or research projects regarding geohazards were already being led by the authors. The profiles of the players, aged 16 to 61, were varied, involving groups of students (secondary and university), citizens, junior university staff, and stakeholders with different academic backgrounds and experience with hazardous events (Fig. 5). As the game was played in active volcano-tectonic regions, the majority of the African players had been confronted at least once with a hazardous phenomenon illustrated by the game, whereas European players usually had no experience with such event. The progress of each game session was recorded using a digital voice recorder and pictures were taken to illustrate the development of the families and infrastructures established on the board game at the end of each year and after each hazardous event. In addition, an observer, different from the game master, took notes to document the remarks and strategies adopted by the players.
In order to assess whether the learning objectives of the game were met, a short questionnaire was distributed before starting the game to define the profile of the players, their relation with hazardous events and their knowledge on the factors influencing disasters. At the end of the game, a second questionnaire to evaluate the players' opinion of the game and their knowledge of the factors influencing disasters was completed. The same set of statements, related to the factors influencing disasters, was proposed in both surveys but in a different order to avoid automatic answering. The player was asked to express his level of agreement with each statement using a five-level Likert scale. Statements with expected negative and positive answers were mixed. The evolution of answers determined the impact of the game in terms of insights gained on geohazardous phenomena and the role of livelihood strategies and access to natural resources in controlling the vulnerability profile of households and communities.
The different game sessions allowed observation of the development of different strategies of resilience. Not all strategies were adopted in each game session but a combination of some of them was systematically observed. No significant correlation between age, background, and experience with strategy could be made. However, these factors influence the decisions made by the players during the game. It also seems that strategies adopted during the game are influenced by personal desire to take risk or not, are mostly intermediary to the extremes strategies described below, and are changing during the game.
Throughout the sessions we observed two main adopted strategies, which we refer to as fast-growth fatalist and protectionist.
Fast-growth fatalist strategies are based on the player's assumption that he or she will be spared from geohazards and/or that the best way to survive potential impacts is by rapidly developing a large set of families. The player spends all resources to develop new families and limited or no protection cards are collected. No savings are built or planning is made to overcome a hazardous event or sustain daily life during a calm period. The player tends to have a lot of families to sustain. When impacted by a hazardous phenomenon, or when loosing access to resources due to road destruction, the player can no longer sustain all families, resulting in death or the need to request help from other players.
Contrarily, protectionist strategies focus on risk reduction strategies
and resilient development. A player adopting such a strategy develops his or
her
families slowly and saves resources. Several complementary protection cards
are collected. Families have therefore a higher chance of surviving a hazardous
event and infrastructures are more adapted to resist it. Considering the
recurrence of certain hazardous phenomena, an upgrade of the dwelling from a
hut to a house allows the protectionist player to make sure the estate
properties will withstand impacts from tsunamis and ash falls. He or she can further
make a house resistant to earthquakes using the proper adaptation card. In
addition to the basic
Players may take account of space in different ways. The location of the initial two families is of major importance. The player might decide to concentrate his or her initial and subsequent dwellings. Doing so, the player clusters assets geographically and might face higher impacts once a hazardous phenomenon strikes that area. Alternatively, the player might decide to spread his or her development across the island, increasing the chance to be impacted by several hazardous events but each with more limited impacts.
Access of dwellings to water wells and food markets is taken into account by most players, at the start or during the game, because this saves resources.
Players sensitive to the spatial aspect of hazard distribution are usually
also in favor of community initiatives regarding land use planning. Some
players inquired about the availability of information about high-risk
locations and whether the possibility existed to (re-)locate their families
to safe places and therefore have a more resilient community. Although this
is not directly foreseen in
No instructions are given at the beginning of the game regarding the possibilities and modes of interaction among the players. Therefore, players usually start playing individually. Some players quickly understand the benefits of working as a community though. Players with diversified or monopolistic resource incomes develop economic strategies, trading their resources against those from other players to increase their total wealth (Fig. 5b).
Other cooperative strategies were developed, especially to support characters impacted by specific hazardous events. Donating resources or hosting homeless families of other characters in non-occupied dwellings, for free or in exchange for resources, were observed in several game sessions.
From a community perspective, it appeared generally difficult for all the characters to decide upon, and implement, community strategies. This arises from the fact that players experience different situations in terms of hazardous event impact and resource availability and develop different perceptions and strategies regarding hazards: the ones pleading for community support often being unable to invest much resources and vice versa. During some sessions, the players decided to collect taxes to be invested in community infrastructures, protection systems, or insurance. The most common community strategy is to either pool resources to be redistributed to hazardous event victims or buy community protection cards. These strategies are often implemented after several game years and are difficult to sustain throughout the years due to lack of resources of some players. Examples of infrastructures built as a community during the game sessions include a developed road network to connect all the dwellings to water wells and food markets and refugee camps to shelter people that have been affected by a hazardous event for a defined period.
Looking at the resilience index evolution for a selected game session (Fig. 6), one can see the extreme variance among players. The lumberjack adopted a fast-growth fatalist strategy but has been, in this example, spared. His fast development and his access to resources allowed this character to reach a high index of resilience even though he did not implement additional protection strategies. The tour guide has been repeatedly affected by geohazardous events. In year 2, he lost one hut and one family due to ash fall (intensity three). In year 4, a lava flow burned three of his huts and covered four of his streets because his infrastructures were clustered in one sector of the island. Families could evacuate thanks to a mitigation card. Due to poor savings, poor access to resources, and little protection strategies, the tour guide kept a low resilience index throughout the game. A small improvement is observed at the end of the game thanks to the generosity of a player to shelter, for free, one homeless family of the tour guide. The mayor, in this game session, can be considered as representative of a protectionist player. The development of his community is progressive to ensure a good access to resources for all his families. Even though the mayor was affected in year 3 by a tsunami (intensity one), his savings allowed him to recover from it within 2 years. Cooperation to build a collective road network with another player also influenced his recovery. In the end, however, the resilience index for the mayor is lower than for the lumberjack, who did not experience any hazard.
The survey results demonstrate that, before starting the game, the players already proved to have a moderate to good understanding of most concepts about disasters (Fig. 7). The trend of the answers given by the players at the beginning of the game corresponds to the expectations. Based on the expected answers, it is observed that, overall, 41 % give the same answers before and after the game, 31 % of the players give improved answers after the game, and 28 % give diminished answers. As specified in Fig. 7, and considering the whole population of answers, a statistically significant improvement is observed regarding the players' understanding of the importance of land use spatial planning, community strategies, and home adaptation to develop a resilient community. When asked whether settlement location is mainly controlled by the will to avoid hazards, players initially answer negatively but seem to agree more with this statement after the game. For the rest of the statements, no statistically significant improvement is achieved, although the evolution in answers before and after the game follows the expected trend.
Example of the evolution of the resilience index for fast-growth fatalist players not affected (lumberjack) and affected (tour guide) by geohazardous events during the game and for a protectionist player (mayor) affected but well prepared.
Evolution of the players' (
Appreciation of the game by the players (
Figure 7 further shows that differences in the significance of the change in the answers provided before and after the game are observed for African and European players. After the game, both sets of players are more convinced about the importance of community strategies to reduce the impact of a disaster. Regarding the spatial variation of exposure to hazards, a contrasted evolution is observed in the two groups of players. African players are less in agreement with the statement that all hazardous phenomena affect the same places while European players are more convinced. European players also definitively improve their knowledge about the role of livelihood and infrastructure adaptations on decreasing the disasters impacts. Europeans also change their opinion regarding the statement that home settlement is mainly chosen to avoid hazards. Their consideration of the spatial distribution of hazards shows a significant positive evolution.
Based on the answers given to an open question of the survey, it is observed that players realize the benefit of sharing, investing, and helping each other by stating that working as a community can be considered as a DRR strategy. They also indicate the need for a better understanding of their environment to make thoughtful choices concerning land use planning and dwellings settlement.
According to the players,
Players indicated that they receive enough scientific information throughout
the game to have a better understanding of the physical mechanisms of
hazards and their impacts on human properties and livelihood, with a clear
focus on the latter (Fig. 8). They also state that
A distinction, however, has to be made between the evaluation of the game by African and European players due to differences in life experiences and geological situations (Fig. 8). Where African players highlight the usefulness of the game to develop mitigation plans at a personal and a professional level, European players mostly draw attention to the scientific information conveyed by the game.
Comparisons could be made between development and DRR strategies implemented
by the players and case studies of human communities confronted with disasters
as described in the literature (Wisner et al., 2003). We here limit ourselves
to a conceptual interpretation of the
The
In nature, species adopting the
All fast-growth fatalist, protectionist, spatial, individual, or collective
strategies described above were observed once or repetitively during the
surveyed sessions but their implementation depends on various factors. Real
life experience of hazardous events and impacts experienced during the game
influences the players' strategies. It has been observed that these players
usually adopt more protectionist strategies with a good access to resources.
Observations also show that the strategy of a player changes during the game.
Even if a player chooses a specific strategy during the game, he or she usually ends
it with an extreme fast-growth fatalist strategy. At the end of the game,
players have nothing to lose and invest all their savings to develop.
Although it is initially stated that the cooperative goal of the game is to
reach a resilient community as a whole, each player might favor the
development of their own character, thus influencing their decisions.
In addition, power relationships and social skills also seem to influence the
group decisions. The game attributes a leadership position to the mayor
during the discussions. This character is often caricatured and suffers
sometimes from exclusion. In particular, African players project on the mayor
their lack of trust regarding the authorities of their own country. Of
course,
The appreciation of a game is something highly personal and players have different standards for what they are looking for. However, some ingredients are important to make a game attractive: (1) it has to be playful and nourish the desire to play it again (Annetta et al., 2014; Castella et al., 2005; Turkay and Adinolf, 2012); (2) the rules have to be coherent to the target audience and should be easy to understand (i.e., rules should have a logic similar to reality) (Dieleman and Huisingh, 2006; Souchère et al., 2010); (3) players need tension, have to be surprised, and be challenged without having to wait too long (Martin et al., 2011; Turkay and Adinolf, 2012); (4) the appearance of the game has to be appealing and should help the player to relate the game to real situations, since it is a player's first impression of the game (Martin et al., 2011).
Based on the survey,
Several games have already been developed to raise awareness about one or
several hazards and reduce their impact (e.g.,
Information about the mechanisms of hazards and their impacts on infrastructures, natural resources, and livelihood is illustrated during the game. African players suggested that the scientific information provided during the game is sufficient but their appreciation for this aspect is always lower than that of the European players. This may be due to a difference in initial knowledge. They have more experience with geohazardous phenomena and that is why they want to learn even more about the hazardous events they might face in their daily life, resulting in higher expectations. This highlights the need to adapt the focus of the game, especially the discussions and the explanations provided by the game master, to the background of the players.
For some participants, the surveys indicated an evolution opposite to the expectations. This can partially be attributed to the way some of the statements were formulated and to the difficulty of isolating one factor from the other ones. Answers to the questionnaires also depend on the specificity of the game session. Indeed, each game session is unique: hazardous events experienced, discussions, and extent of the impacts on the board game will differ, which may result in more attention being given to one or another disaster factor. The game master has to ensure that discussions address all elements influencing the disaster and that enough time is allocated to summarize the main message of the game in the end. In order to be sure that players receive all the information needed, information sheets about the hazards and appropriated DRR strategies that can be developed during the game are distributed to each player after the game.
One of the key limitations of games is the need for significant
simplification and generalization. This ensures that a game is fun to play
and that the rules are understandable. In terms of hazards, only four
geohazards are addressed by
The game is also very generic in terms of geographic setting and character profiles. This has the advantage that it can be played with participants of different age, culture, and knowledge about natural risks and risk management. However it might prevent some players relating directly to the game as the specific hazard and risk conditions of their environment they are familiar with are not represented. These issues of simplification and generalization can partially be addressed by the game master by providing information and examples relevant to the players and by inviting the players to discuss and possibly adapt the game rules. As already mentioned above, more detailed information on mechanisms of hazards, spatial distribution, and impacts are provided to each player in an info leaflet at the end of the game. In the future, modified versions of the game in terms of geographic setting, as well as resource distribution or accessibility, could be implemented to fit the needs of a specific region and target audience. Finally, implementation of additional or alternative hazardous events, such as landslides or flooding, could be considered if topographic characteristics of the landscape are properly simulated on the board game. Rules would stay more or less the same but a new set of impacts provoked by the events would have to be defined.
Another limitation of the game, especially for improving DRR awareness, is the time required to play it. The need to dedicate several hours to a game session is clearly a limitation for integrating of the game into a teaching program and it may be more suitable as an extracurricular activity. A balance has to be found between the play and the informative aspect of the game. Because of the diversity of the game objectives, it may be beneficial to play the game several times. During a first session, time could be dedicated to explain the rules and to discover all information needed to get a better understanding of geohazards. In a second session, the game could then focus on highlighting the factors controlling the disasters, while a third session could focus more on the interaction among the players as well as on developing and testing DRR strategies.
A final limitation of the game is the need for a game master highly knowledgeable in the addressed topics to lead the game and guide the players' discussions. The game sessions were so far led by one of the co-authors, but to multiply the impact of the game there is a need in the future to train teachers or other science communication actors as game masters. A detailed game master guideline document is already available to describe the game procedure, key points to be highlighted during the discussions, and some examples of recent disasters.
Based on the experience of the
In this paper we presented a new approach using a serious game to educate a broad audience about geohazards, disasters, and DRR strategies, including secondary school students, citizens, and risk managers.
We are extremely grateful to Ilja Van Braeckel for developing the visual
material of the game, to Benoît Smets for providing some of the
pictures, and to Jef Van Laer and Anja Decoster for their supportive comments
on earlier versions of the game. We thank all the participants of the game sessions of