Climate Detectives: Open for Business is an educational card game that teaches middle-school aged students about responsible city development and emphasizes the connection between excessive pollution and more serious natural disasters. I have the pleasure of working with an amazing small team on this project consisting of content developer and user testing lead, Paige Harriman, project manager Diane Boswell, and illustrator Sam Fowler, with myself acting as game design lead. The project prototype began as a class project at UNC and received a small grant that has allowed us to grow the project past graduation.
While playing the game, players act as city planners deciding what to build and re-open in a town that is recovering from a pandemic shutdown. They have to decide what buildings are best for their town’s people and environment, balancing economic gain with pollution created by businesses. Periodically through the game natural disasters hit the towns which will test how well they’ve prepared their towns! If players pollute too much, the natural disasters will increase in severity.
Each card will be enhanced with augmented reality codes made possible by the Zappar app. Augmented reality allows us to create additional educational content and accessibility features that will allow the game to be used in a variety of educational contexts. To follow updates about the game, check out Mighty Curious Games on instagram.