U.N. Offers "Stop Disasters!" Serious Game

U.N. Offers "Stop Disasters!" Serious Game

March 5, 2007
Hoping to educate children on ways to mitigate the effects of natural disaster, The United Nations has released a Stop Disasters!, a free, online game.

A press release from the U.N.'s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) describes the game and its purpose:
Children are one of the most vulnerable groups when disasters occur. If we teach them from the early age about the risks posed by natural hazards, children will have a better chance to save their lives during disasters.

...Children will learn playing how the location and the construction materials of houses can make a difference when disasters strike and how early warning systems, evacuation plans and education can save lives...

Gamasutra reports British developer Playerthree designed the game, which addresses events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and wildfires. Although Stop Disasters! is only available online and in English at this time, the U.N. plans to eventually create a DVD in multiple languages for children in Africa, Asia, Latin America and thw Caribbean.
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Comments

Submitted by boy advanced advance » UN Offers “Stop Disasters!” - March 6, 2007 at 5:01 pm -0500
[...] Original post by GamePolitics [...]
Submitted by Sam - March 5, 2007 at 6:17 pm -0500
Serious games also cover games which carry a political message, and I'm sure people can think of other types of games which are made for more reasons then "to be fun".

It does not just cover edutainment.
Submitted by Hannah - March 5, 2007 at 5:26 pm -0500
It's not bad, but there are definitely some design problems. I don't like having to click through Upgrade multiple times to add everything to the community center, and having to click develop and scroll through a menu to build anything is a bit awkward too. It would be better to have a series of icons representing each building at the bottom, perhaps. Another thing that bothered me was the way it made me click through multiple bits of text just to start the game. Yeah, I know the information's important, but I'd prefer to only click OK once.

It occurs to me that the term "serious game" is little more than a replacement for the largely outdated term "edutainment." Although the latter term carries some stigma -- blame a lot of really terrible kids' games for that -- I think it is a more accurate description of what people are trying to do with the genre. After all, despite (and in some cases because of) the educational value, a game like this is still meant to be fun. The key thing is to remember that a game's entertainment value does not lessen the seriousness of its message. If anything, it has the opposite effect, because a member of the target audience is more likely to spend more time with a game that he enjoys. An educational but boring game will be discarded and forgotten within minutes, but a true "edutainment" title will be fun enough to capture a player's attention and make him think.
Submitted by GoodRobotUs - March 5, 2007 at 4:01 pm -0500
'That’s what the UN is great at…meetings, talking, and now making computer games. Oh and passing “very strongly worded” resolutions that are meaningless in the real world. And taking bribes.

Useless. '

Which is different from every other governing force on the planet how exactly?
Submitted by Jabrwock - March 5, 2007 at 4:19 pm -0500
@Boffo97

"How much leeway is there for disaster CAUSING? Okay, peasants, you get to live in a house of straw on the river! Yay!"

You can do that too. Bulldoze all the buildings on high-ground, build cheap ones in the flood plain. Not nice, and gives you a bad score, but doable.
Submitted by Freekill - March 5, 2007 at 1:39 pm -0500
n.n pretty nice. Just another support for the "not all games turn people into heartless killing machines" argument...
Submitted by Boffo97 - March 5, 2007 at 12:49 pm -0500
How much leeway is there for disaster CAUSING?

Okay, peasants, you get to live in a house of straw on the river! Yay!
Submitted by Jabrwock - March 5, 2007 at 9:53 am -0500
@TK

If you like games like SimCity, it's definitely fun. I've been playing all weekend trying to go for 0 deaths in the flooding scenario.

And at the same time, it's very educational, because you learn a lot about disaster prevention from the upgrades and other things you can build. Stuff as simple as capping wells so they don't get contaminated by runoff, or recognizing that secondary flash floods can cause water to assault a town from a direction you may not have initially considered. Or even just that backflow valves can save you thousands in damages.
Submitted by blah - March 5, 2007 at 9:42 am -0500
That's what the UN is great at...meetings, talking, and now making computer games. Oh and passing "very strongly worded" resolutions that are meaningless in the real world. And taking bribes.

Useless.
Submitted by Calvinball - March 5, 2007 at 6:40 am -0500
I just played it. It's well done between finding out key facts as you play and being able to see the results after the disaster it's easy to see things that you missed in your planning. Kids will certainly be able to contribute after playing this game.
Submitted by Brer - March 5, 2007 at 6:36 am -0500
Wake me up when the UN decides to do more than make video games, offer up toothless "resolutions", and engage in bribery and graft on an international scale.
Submitted by TK - March 5, 2007 at 6:13 am -0500
I don't have time to play it now, but the question is, of course, is it fun? Too many things like this are made which are so boring and un-original that any message they might have had is lost.
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