EkoSphere
In Development
Project Summary:
EkoSphere is an interactive serious game designed to help players understand urban resilience and climate adaptation through Nature-Based Solutions (NbS). The game places players in the role of a city decision-maker responding to escalating climate challenges, where each choice involves tradeoffs between social, environmental, and technical outcomes.
Rather than presenting climate solutions as universally “good” or “bad”, EkoSphere emphasizes context, placement, and consequence. Players must balance limited resources, community sentiment, and long-term resilience as climate hazards unfold. The experience is designed for educational settings, encouraging systems thinking, discussion, and reflection rather than optimization.
I am the primary designer and developer on the project, responsible for core gameplay systems, scoring logic, interaction design, and the translation of academic urban resilience into playable mechanics. The project is developed in collaboration with researchers and is currently undergoing iterative playtesting.
Rather than presenting climate solutions as universally “good” or “bad”, EkoSphere emphasizes context, placement, and consequence. Players must balance limited resources, community sentiment, and long-term resilience as climate hazards unfold. The experience is designed for educational settings, encouraging systems thinking, discussion, and reflection rather than optimization.
I am the primary designer and developer on the project, responsible for core gameplay systems, scoring logic, interaction design, and the translation of academic urban resilience into playable mechanics. The project is developed in collaboration with researchers and is currently undergoing iterative playtesting.
Core Design Pillars:
Core Gameplay Systems:
EkoSphere uses a custom SET scoring model (Social, Environmental, Technological) to evaluate player decisions. Each Nbs affects these dimensions differently depending on placement, context, and sequencing, reinforcing that resilience is multi-dimensional and often conflicting.
Scores are presented, prompting players to compare outcomes across dimensions rather than fixating on totals.
Players select and place NbS such as community gardens, permeable sidewalks, green roofs, and wetlands. Each Solution:
The system encourages players to ask: “Why does this solution work here, but not there?”
Gameplay unfolds across a sequence of urban challenges, each building toward potential climate hazards (e.g. flooding, heatwaves). Rather than revealing outcomes upfront, the game provides partial foresight, incentivizing players to build balanced resilience rather than preparing for a single known disaster.
Each challenge contributes to a cumulative city state, reinforcing continuity rather than isolated levels.
A developing community feedback system introduces non-technical constraints into decision-making. Community responses reflect accessibility, visibility, and perceived fairness of interventions and not just their effectiveness.
The system is intentionally imperfect:
This reinforces the social complexity of real world urban planning.
EkoSphere explores non-traditional economy systems to avoid reducing climate action to pure cost-efficiency. Current and planned constraints include:
The goal is to create meaningful scarcity without overwhelming players or encouraging exploitative play.
My Contributions:
Systems & Game Design:
Research Translation:
UI/UX & Information Design:
Iterative Playtesting:
Research Translation:
UI/UX & Information Design:
Iterative Playtesting:
Development & Iteration Highlights:
Outcome & Current Status:
EkoSphere is currently in active development and playtesting. Early feedback indicates strong engagement and curiosity, alongside clear opportunities to improve clarity, pacing, and economic motivation. The project continues to evolve through iterative testing, with a focus on making climate adaptation concepts understandable, discussable, and memorable.
This project represents my interest in designing games as thinking tools: systems that invite players to explore complexity, confront uncertainty, and understand that meaningful decisions rarely have perfect answers.
This project represents my interest in designing games as thinking tools: systems that invite players to explore complexity, confront uncertainty, and understand that meaningful decisions rarely have perfect answers.
Why This Project Matters:
EkoSphere demonstrates my ability to: