Climate Connected: Outbreak

Climate Connected: Outbreak is a single-player game for immersive VR and traditional computer screens. The game approaches climate change as a planetary health and well-being issue and supports players' emotional and behavioral engagement with the topic. The story takes place in 2050 and connects day-to-day life with systemic issues. Two versions can be played, one featuring an unnamed distant place and the other located in Tampere, Finland. The game has been used in research and has led to nuanced understandings of the players’ experience, as well as learning, attitude, and self-efficacy gains.

Background information

Climate change poses a serious threat to human well-being and life on Earth. To avoid global warming’s worst consequences every effort is needed, which requires cognitively, affectively and behaviorally engaging of as many of us as possible. However, climate change engagement is far from easy or simple, with manifold personal and contextual variables affecting our connection with the issue. Because of this, games and gamification have been proposed as visual, interactive, and motivating methods to support people in their engagement journey.

Despite dozens of climate change-relevant digital games existing, some configurations are under-explored, including messaging frames such as health, engagement dimensions beyond knowledge, technologies such as immersive virtual reality (VR), and controlled experimental research methods. This is why we created this game.

For more information on the game and its design process and principles, see:

Fernández Galeote, D., Legaki, N. Z., & Hamari, J. (2023). Climate Connected: An Immersive VR and PC Game for Climate Change Engagement. In Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 266-273). https://doi.org/10.1145/3573382.3616053

Empirical research using the game

Fernández Galeote, D., Sicevic, N., Legaki, N-Z., & Hamari, J. (2024). Changing Climate Change Mental Models Through Game-Based Learning: A Controlled Experiment Involving Cognitive Mapping. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 8(CHI PLAY). https://doi.org/10.1145/3677062

Fernández Galeote, D., Legaki, N-Z., & Hamari, J. (2024). Climate Change at Your Doorstep: An Experiment Using a Digital Game and Distance Framing. In Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY Companion ’24), October 14–17, 2024, Tampere, Finland. https://doi.org/10.1145/3665463.3678780

Fernández Galeote, D., Legaki, N. Z., & Hamari, J. (2023). From Traditional to Game-Based Learning of Climate Change: A Media Comparison Experiment. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7(CHI PLAY), 503-525. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611039

Fernández Galeote, D., Legaki, N. Z., & Hamari, J. (2023). Text-and game-based communication for climate change attitude, self-efficacy, and behavior: A controlled experiment. Computers in Human Behavior, 149, 107930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107930

Fernández Galeote, D., Zeko, C., Volkovs, K., Diamant, M., Thibault, M., Legaki, N. Z., ... & Hamari, J. (2022). The Good, the Bad, and the Divergent in Game-based Learning: Player Experiences of a Serious Game for Climate Change Engagement. In Proceedings of the 25th International Academic Mindtrek Conference (pp. 256-267). https://doi.org/10.1145/3569219.3569414

Fernández Galeote, D., Diamant, M., Volkovs, K., Zeko, C., Thibault, M., Legaki, N. Z., & Hamari, J. (2022). Understanding the Game-based Learning Experience: A Framework of Frictions Between Design and Play. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 1-4). https://doi.org/10.1145/3555858.3555933