What if you had to secure the food yield for an entire region!

Navn
Alexis Emmanuel Lozano Angulo
Uddannelsesgrad
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Design
Institut
Visuelt Design
Program
Visual Game and Media Design
År
2020
Udmærkelser
Det Kongelige Akademis FN-legat

The project objectives involved designing a game which could transform players, by increasing their knowledge regarding sustainability and circular economy for food. Thus, it was important to visualize the challenges and possible practices around food production and consumption for more sustainable societies.

Subsyst's relevance in the game design praxis is based on the following criteria:

  • Collection of user insights using the ZMET technique which modeled the content of the video game
  • Using Machinations as a game design tool to balance the flow of in-game resources
  •  Assessing the impact of the game through a questionnaire-playtest-questionnaire methodology

The assessment stage of the project generated preliminary results, showing that the game has the potential to significantly increase the knowledge of players, after playing the prototype for a minimum of 30 minutes.

The Subsyst Simulator is playable at: 
https://eplundare.itch.io/subsyst-simulator

(Playable only on a web browser on PC/Mac).

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Sketch and paper prototype, mapping the locations and agents in the game
Game design document, with the complex relationships of the simulation
Game economy diagram, designed in Machinations, showing the flow of resources
Visual style iterations
Level design
Color system: The color scheme is responsive to the state of resources in the game
Iconography
Programming diagram
Screenshot: Overview
Screenshot: Upgrades
Screenshot: "The Sower" News
Screenshot: Cataclysm
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Is it sustainable to produce food in a small-scale or in an industrial scale?
Is it possible to produce food and regenerate the environment?

The project was given depth using documentation about sustainability, food systems and circular economy for food from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the One Planet Network from the UN. The work was also enriched with the ZMET (Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique), a user research process used to visualize the world view of users and their understanding of a specific topic.

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Simulation pillars
Target audience traits: geopolitical awareness, notions about sustainability and experience with strategy games
The project used documentation from these subject matter experts
Circular economy for food (Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation)
Transformational framework for games designed to transform players
Triadic game design: Merging Reality, Meaning and Play
ZMET user research: 5 participants were asked to gather images which represented sustainable food and waste for them
ZMET user insights about sustainable food and waste
ZMET concept map 1: Insights were distilled and merged with the domain of circular economy for food
ZMET concept map 2: The images gathered by participants served as a visual library for the project's development
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Det Kongelige Akademi understøtter FN’s verdensmål

Siden 2017 har Det Kongelige Akademi arbejdet med FN’s verdensmål. Det afspejler sig i forskning, undervisning og afgangsprojekter. Dette projekt har forholdt sig til følgende FN-mål
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Det Kongelige Akademis FN-legat

Juryen sagde bl.a.:
"The game enables a space where players can control a food-economy while managing the environmental impact of their decisions in a virtual city. The project allows exploring and unpacking the relations between the production and consumption of food, as well as how to dispose of by-products and how to process pollution by contrasting an industrial linear economy against a sustainable circular economy. Alexis has done an incredible job at researching the facts, identifying the target audience and building personas, designing and balancing interrelated complex systems, and assessing the impact that playing the game has on users."