The folks at Something Awful recently issued a Photoshop Phriday challenge: environmentally-friendly video games. The sleek graphics put a new – and funny – spin on public transportation, fuel efficiency, nuclear disarmament, and other sustainability-related topics. Environmental Club spoofs the movie Fight Club with the tagline, “I am Jack’s greener self” and Need for Speed: Carbon Credit turns hybrids into tough and sexy racecars. The challenge coincided somewhat with the fourth annual Games for Change (G4C) conference in New York where Microsoft announced this summer’s global warming-themed Xbox 360 Games for Change Challenge. While many of the Serious Games described at G4C tackle serious topics seriously, the games proposed by Something Awful contributors address gamers on their own terms. Who knows – the Xbox Challenge might be just the thing to give FuelSaver2 and Super Recycled Paper Mario the push to go from concept to production.

This is awesome!

As a nonprofit facilitator who spends time making up games and activities that prepare people for local food system change and community development, I often find myself wanting more general media tools out there preparing people for truly useful scenarios.

Since Worldchanging is SF friendly, I'll throw out the Diamond Age example of an adaptable teaching tool-toy that harnesses the exhiliration of fantasy to project forward for some bleeding edge innovations in environmental management, systems biomimicry, community facilitation/decision making processes, and legal and economic strategies.

Posted by: Rasha Abdulhadi on July 3, 2007 12:48 PM

Great, timly content, but I'm in love with the title of this post, Katie.

Posted by: Patrick on July 3, 2007 3:24 PM

Great, timely content, but I'm in love with the title of this post, Katie.

Posted by: Patrick on July 3, 2007 3:25 PM

Yes Rasha! This is exactly why our studio exists, to build new worlds that echo the very best in design, biomimicry, intelligence in form and function wrapped in a fun sci-fi story and interactive playspace. We love exploring this terrain and the Games4Change festival in NYC is highly recommended for anyone who wants to take their game design ideas to another level.

Hilarious post Katie.

Posted by: Evonne on July 7, 2007 10:31 AM