Suggest three ways that the game mechanic can be adapted for communicating an environmental message.

To establish Game mechanics again with a definition: "game mechanics are methods invoked by agents, designed for interaction with the game state." http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart

My game mechanic is "countdown", which is related to time limits.
For my game idea I need to relate it back to some environmental issues so for my first idea I have chosen Resource depletion as my issue. I think this is a good start to my idea because my game mechanic can highly relate back too this issue. The game mechanic time limit can relate back to environmental issues because the environment itself is a ticking time bomb and use humans are making it worse everyday. I could relate this mechanic to how if we keep populating the earth the outcome could be serve with water/food shortages and we will have to go on famines, or how we use cars in our everyday life which pollutes the air. Or how deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. There's always a certain time limit on multiple objects in the world and those were just a couple of them.

Some causes of resource depletion:
-Over population
-Erosion
-Pollution
- Mining
- Over use of one material

These are a good start to think of game ideas because it gives me a starting platform to build upon.

How would I relate this game mechanic to show an environmental issue/message?
Well my game mechanic is all about time and one way to show a environmental issue through this mechanic is to have a time limit on earth itself. Then you'd have to keep control of the earths supplies, populations and stop the planet for erasing away into dust. This is just a simple game that could turn very complex really fast, but it has a time limit to it and if you don't keep the standards up you will be destroyed into dust along with everything else.

SKETCH HERE:

My next idea was to be based on a car ride. This idea was about using my mechanic time limit and intertwining it with pollution from the exhaust of the car. You would start off with a in car p.o.v shot which then you can vary from high angled shot and p.o.v shot on the car to suit your driving style. Then when you race forward on the track you will see icons of green leafs (which means your going green to save the earth). You have your own health bar on the side of the screen to represent how green your going. If the bar falls under the midway point you are polluting the earth but if you collect the green leafs you are saving the environment. The concept is to keep your bar green and not pollute the earth.
I like this concept because it sends a clear message to the gamer saying that cars are polluting our world as we know it and if we go green you could save the world for that much longer.

Do we really want to end up like this?


SKETCH HERE: