The Rhino Game describes the plight of the northern white rhino. Players fight to save the northern white rhino from extinction. They plan and organize an expedition to Africa, where they must deal with many problems and face many challenges.
There is an illustrated glossary (more like an encyclopaedia). The game is suitable for middle school or older players, but will be rewarding to anyone interested in endangered species.
Players in ?The Climate Change Game? look for solutions to problems caused by climate change. At the beginning of each game a player is given random values for his/her level of Voter Support, his/her tax revenues, global greenhouse gas emissions, and the Earth?s temperature. The player must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a ?safe? level and Earth?s temperature to a ?comfortable? level while keeping the support of the majority of voters and receiving adequate tax revenues to implement decisions.
To achieve these goals, players make Decisions to change the energies they use or use them in a different way, answer Questions on Climate Change, and respond to Natural Events (such as volcanic eruptions) which affect Climate, People's Choices (unpredictable, popular human actions which impact Greenhouse Gas emissions and tax revenues), and Economic and Political decisions by other countries that affect the global level of greenhouse gas emissions. Any topic can be researched using the comprehensive Glossary.
A player wins ?The Climate Change Game? ? and is rewarded with re-election - if he or she
- can help reduce global Greenhouse Gas emissions to the level required by the Kyoto
Protocol AND
- is not spending more money than his/her people pay in taxes, AND
- has maintained Voter Support of at least 51 percent AND
- Earth?s Temperature is ?comfortable" for life.
The Mapinguari Game is a point and click game for Windows. In the first of three parts, players must plan an expedition to the Amazon. In the second part, they must organize their expedition in the rain forest and establish relationships with the indigenous peoples.
In the final part, players collect photographs, video, audio recordings, samples of droppings, and DNA and blood samples etc. as evidence of Mapinguari's existence, hoping to persuade the world community to protect the animal by protecting its habitat - the tropical rainforests - and, therefore, saving the forest's indigenous peoples and their cultures.
On daily treks through the forest they play mini-games in which they face hostile ranchers, farmers, loggers, and gold miners, tropical diseases and infestations of parasites and insects, campaigns by skeptical scientists to discredit them, floods and fires threatening their camp, and attacks by anacondas, jaguars, and piranhas.
If players accumulate sufficient points, they select the evidence and arguments to use in a presentation to the United Nations, which decides Mapinguari's - and the Amazon's - fate.
The game has a comprehensive glossary and numerous sources of information on the Amazon and related environmental issues.
The Whale Game is a point and click 'board' game. Players observe the health of several oceans, test the DNA of whale meat bought in Japan or Iceland, and encounter hostile whaling fleets, hurricanes or typhoons, tsunamis, industrial fishing fleets, fishers using destructive driftnets, rogue waves, and many kinds of ocean pollution, including oil spills, plastics, sewage, fertilizers, and toxic chemicals.
They try to divert a naval fleet heading for a collision with a pod of whales and witness titanic struggles between whales and giant squid. They must also accurately identify any whales they see.
When they return home, they present their data and observations to the world community. Hopefully, whales and their ocean habitat will be protected!
Players will learn a lot of world geography; the game has a comprehensive glossary and information to help players make their decisions. Players will also learn how whales and their ocean habitat are threatened in many ways and how those threats could be dealt with.
The game has three sections. In the first, players must plan and organize an expedition; in the second, they plan their voyage; and in the third they sail the world's oceans to gather the data they need.
Games can be saved at any point and continued later. Each game is rated, so players can compete with each other or try to improve their own scores.
