Simulation game lets Kiwis plan for future climate challenge

A new online simulation game has been launched in New Zealand. It offers players the chance to experience the effects of climate change on coastal and lowland communities through multi-generational scenarios.

The Future Coasts Aotearoa game simulates the challenges posed by rising sea levels, flooding, and other climate-driven hazards. It provides players—whether individuals, households, or teams—with the opportunity to make adaptation decisions over an 80-year timeframe. The game can be played on laptops, tablets, or desktop computers and supports both solo and group play.

Players assume roles within simulated coastal communities, including farmers, marae residents, and town dwellers, to engage with crisis scenarios based on scientific projections. The game incorporates multiple weather-related threats and varying land uses to reflect the diverse geographies and livelihoods at risk.

Scott Stephens, Chief Scientist – Coasts and Estuaries at NIWA, said, "With around three-quarters of Kiwis living within 10km of the sea, the game is about the places where most people live, work, and play. As well as incorporating multiple weather-related hazards, based on real science showing what could happen, the Future Coasts game features different land uses, from farms and marae to small settlements and towns."

"Players experience a community response to these events and build an understanding of the impacts and adaptation options to plan for the future. People can play multiple times to try creating different outcomes over the 80-years of the game."

Stephens noted that while environmental processes such as river floods, rising sea levels, storm surges, and increased groundwater are well-documented, less is known about how communities might actually respond. "The environmental processes of river floods, rising sea levels, storm surges from extreme weather, and rising groundwater are known and understood. However, we don't know how people might make decisions and act when faced with future challenges."

"We could ask people how they would adapt to a changing climate. But the solution this game provides is giving people a real experience of the possible scenarios, to see their actual actions. So as the game unfolds, with different scenarios, we see their choices, whether they decide to do nothing, protect assets and infrastructure with stopbanks or seawalls, or use nature-based solutions such as wetlands."

The game collects anonymous data on player behaviours, with the intention of identifying common response patterns. "We don't know how people might respond given several choices to adapt to complex and rapid environmental change. So by simulating real-world situations and consequences over the 80 years of the game, data from thousands of game plays will be used to develop models of human behaviour. By taking part in this citizen science, people are learning about the impacts of a changing climate, enabling better decision-making and shaping policy," Stephens explained.

Stephens added that the game's purpose is to generate insights into practical solutions rather than dwell on negative outcomes. "For some playing the game, they have an 'aha' moment when they become aware of the natural hazards and environmental changes, and the urgency to act. They really do 'feel the squeeze' – it is not just an intellectual exercise, but a real experience. Actions can be taken to maximise the benefits to individuals, households and communities."

"Because while sea-level rise is not going to stop, we have to explore ways of doing things differently by the coast and plains to find the best way forward. The game offers a chance to experience the future, and empowers people to help shape it too. That's why we'd like as many people as possible play the game and help reach 10,000 game plays by July."

Melanie Langlotz, Chief Executive Officer of Geo AR, which contributed to the game's development, said that this form of interactive simulation has potential as an educational and research tool. "In Future Coasts Aotearoa, you take on the role of someone from a coastal community — a local farmer, a kaumātua from a marae, or a townsperson — and get to experience the rising sea levels, the floods, the rising groundwater. The goal isn't to escape the problem, but to experience what you can do to navigate future solutions."

"Rather than building a game that explains climate change, we created one that reveals the ripple effects of decisions and policies. You're not playing to win — you're playing to understand. And what's truly exciting is that the choices players make in the game can help inform real-world policy. It gives us a glimpse into how people might respond to climate change when they're not in crisis mode — and that insight is incredibly valuable," Langlotz said.

The game forms part of a five-year MBIE Endeavour Research programme led by NIWA. The goal is to transform coastal lowland systems affected by relative sea-level rise into sustainable communities.

Players progress through eight rounds, each representing a decade, and select from options including individual actions, collective community responses, or inaction. Each choice bears consequences that evolve over the simulated period as climate risks increase. Events and hazards are randomly assigned, which means no two game sessions are identical, and outcomes can vary widely depending on the strategies chosen by participants.

The game is aimed primarily at adults and young people over sixteen, though it can also be played by younger children with adult guidance. User feedback and behavioural data collected from gameplay will support the development of models to predict how communities may respond to climate change pressures and inform future climate resilience policies.

The initiative seeks to both educate New Zealanders about the challenges facing coastal regions and to gather information that may inform research and policy for managing climate adaptation across the country's vulnerable lowlands and coastlines.