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Pollution City

A serious game to raise awareness of air pollution.

Situation

When my team and I learned that 40,000 death in the UK are linked to air pollution each year we were shocked. And we realised that many people are like us: they do not know how damaging polluted air actually is.

Task

So for the CHI Student Game Design Competition we decided to create a serious game that rises awareness of air pollution in cities.

Tools & Technologies

Sketch, Photoshop, Xcode, SpriteKit

UX Skills

Csikszentmihalyi’s creative process, Paper prototyping, Software prototyping, Think-alouds, Semi-structured interviews, Immersive Experience Questionnaire, Play Testing

Action

  1. BRAINSTORMING - Our initial game idea was created by following the five steps Csikszentmihalyi’s creative process. A mobile app was chosen because we wanted to address young people in the city.
  2. HIGH & LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPES - We went through multiple iterations of prototypes to continuously enhance the initial idea. We created paper prototypes and a software prototype in parallel to test different aspect of the game. I used Xcode and the SpriteKit framework to develop the software prototype.
  3. PLAY TESTING - We evaluated the players experience using think-alouds, semi-structured interviews and the Immersive Experience Questionnaire. The persuasiveness was assessed by employing pre- and post-questionnaires about domain knowledge and subject motivation.
Mobirise
A major reason for air pollution in London are the diesel caps
Mobirise
Initial design idea
Mobirise
First paper prototype
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First software prototype created using Xcode and SpriteKit

Result

Pollution City is a serious game that simulates the effect of air pollution on people in a city. Players learn about the causes of air pollution, its negative effects on people’s health and how to reduce it.

A playable alpha version can be made available on request: t.bouwman@me.com.

Mobirise
The player needs to save the city and its citizens by reducing the air pollution
Mobirise
Each city represents a different level. More polluted cities are more difficult.