Decision-making simulation

[Patricia]

The International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate
Centre (IFRC-CC) has developed participatory games to provide an
experiential learning experience about using scientific data, that is,
forecasts, in the decision-making process related to disaster
preparedness.

The games, though in the early stages of iterative development, are
very popular and we find ourselves scrambling to meet the demands of a
broad spectrum of potential player communities which range from the
IFRC itself along with many other national and global humanitarian
organizations and include government representatives, community
leaders, members of the community, NGOs, donors and other
stakeholders.

What we’re looking for at this point are examples of existing games
that bring the participant through a similarly complex decision
process based on a probability where there is no way to avoid the
randomness of whether the predicted event materializes.

We are interested in both of these perspectives:
• Games that address disaster preparedness
• Games that are designed to illustrate a complex decision-making
process but are not tailored to the humanitarian sector

Although face-to-face game play seems to be the most effective format
for this type of learning experience, games in other formats will be
just as informative.

Thanks,
Patricia

[christine mcglade]

Hi Patricia,

You may be interested in this game:

http://insidedisaster.com/experience/Main.html

This was created by a team that was embedded with the Canadian Red Cross at
the very beginning of the Haiti Earthquake. It may not exactly suit your
purposes but it has been very critically successful and the unique access
footage they use makes the experience of the game impactful,

CM

Christine McGlade
Manager
Interactive & Digital Media
P: 416-484-2810
E: cmcg...@tvo.org

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[Rex Brynen]

Patricia:

What you seem to be looking for in game examples describes a vast swathe of military wargames, where decision-making processes are complex (albeit far more hierarchical) while outcomes are stochastically-determined. It also describes an awful lot of non-military government crisis games, such as those that address pandemic preparedness. A good contact on the latter would be the folks at the Center for Applied Strategic Learning at National Defense University, who routinely run these sorts of games. Email me off-list and I'll suggest some contacts.

Also, if you want to crowd-source on this more broadly, would you consider writing up a short piece on what you're trying to do that we could post at PAXsims (http://paxsims.wordpress.com)? The website is aimed at professionals who use serious games to address development, peace,and conflict issues, and so quite a few folks among our regular readers might have ideas. Again, contact me off-list if you're interested.

cheers,

Rex

Department of Political Science

McGill University

http://www.mcgill.ca/politicalscience/faculty/brynen/

[Ola A]

We have used a game developed by Engineers Without Borders, Canada
called the Green Revolution which is a group role-play simulation. In
its original version
http://chapters.ewb.ca/pages/enabling-programs/member-learning/development-history_-approach-and-issues/greenrev-2006.zip
it is still a fairly multi-faceted decision problem and it is easy to
come up with extensions based on water availability, market dynamics,
etc. We are currently working on putting it online using a Geographic
Information System as the model engine to replicate scientific models.
You can read more about this work here
http://osu-geogames.blogspot.com/2010/09/geogame-green-revolution.html.
and feel free to contact me if you have questions.

Ola

[Marcus Olsson]

The game that first came to my mind is a video game called Mass
Effect. A Sci-fi action roleplaying game with plenty of decision-
making throughout the story. If you give it the time it takes to play
it.

And about disaster preparedness. There is a book called The zombie
survival guide, by Max Brooks. It might sound silly but it is actually
a very useful book, applicable on way more scenarios than a zombie
outbreak.

I hope you give them both a chance.

Best regards
Marcus Olsson

[Gene Koo]

Interesting stuff; the simulation reminds me of role-playing sims you can purchase from the Harvard Program on Negotiation, http://www.pon.org/catalog/index.php . These are super-high-quality as they've been tested and tweaked over years of use with hundreds to thousands of students.

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[FnD]

Hi Patricia,

we have signed an MOU and are actually in the final stage of
completing a Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) Game for MERCY Malaysia -
http://www.mercy.org.my/.

The board game focus on Disaster Management in particular Disaster
Preparedness and the starting point we are focusing on Earthquake,
Tsunami, Flood, Thypoon and Pendemic. Its about educating, promoting
and advocating the DRR.

The game make the players to prioritize, decision making and
collaborating with others to save the world!

By the way, my name is Effendy Norzaman from Malaysia. I am the
Founder of FnD mindspot, We are an enterprise that promote game and
the power of game. We have a place where people come and hangout and
play games(mainly physical game where more human interaction).

That outlet also become our showroom and our R&D centre where we study
games in details, its mechanics and how can we use that in non gaming
context and every day life to engage people and solve problems.

We also going out promoting games and design and customize games for
others. We have been in operation nearly 2 years now. www.facebook.com/FnD.mindspot

Our DRR game for MERCY just now will be of your interest, it will be
complete by January 2012.

Keep in touch and lets see how can we help to save the world! :-)

I can be contacted at f...@mindspot.com.my as well.

Best regards

FnD