How Green New Deal Simulator inspires hope in a climate changing world
Green New Deal Simulator is a card game where the player is trying to move the United States away from carbon emissions while still keeping everyone employed. It draws from real-world policies as it asks the player to work towards finding solutions to looming climate disaster.
Game Developer spoke with Paolo Pedercini of Molleindustrai, developer of this environmentally-conscious card game, to talk about creating a game around the solutions to the climate crisis, the route the developer took towards simplifying this complex subject into a card game, and the challenges that came from distilling such nuanced subjects into visuals for the cards.
Game Developer: Green New Deal Simulator is a deck-building game about climate change. What appealed to you about making a game like this? What inspired its creation?
Pedercini: There are plenty of environmentally-themed games coming out these days. What I’m personally missing are games and media that go past raising awareness of the issues and move toward raising awareness of the solutions, especially in the short term. The solutions to the climate crisis are not that obvious; they are not just technological fixes (solar panels, etc.), but also political, cultural, and infrastructural.
What thoughts went into creating a card game about such a complex subject? How do you make fixing the environment into a card game at all?
The subject is complex, but you don’t have to tackle every aspect of it. The game focuses on a specific scenario/location (the USA), a specific timeframe (the next two decades or so), and a specific set of issues (like the tension between decarbonization and employment). It also puts the player in a very specific role (the secretary of a new, powerful department),
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