Summary of dialogue process:

‘Stop Disasters’ is a computer game and education tool, originally aimed at school children but

adopted by communities world-wide to promote education and awareness of natural disasters

and explain how community vulnerability can be reduced and resilience increased. It is an online

game and requires both a computer and internet. Although the game is single player it can be

used as a dialogue approach through teams of people working together to negotiate plans and

decide what actions to take. The approach provides a very realistic platform for specific hazards

to be discussed and different strategies of disaster risk reduction negotiated. You can pick from a

level of Easy, Medium or Hard and work accordingly with a budget of £35,000 or £50, 000 and

protecting between 135-219 people. Specifically risk maps can be viewed in order to discuss

where certain development and defences should be placed. This process strengthens awareness

of the factors which create risks and context-specific consideration of where best to locate and

develop housing, hospitals, schools and community centres. In addition the selection of hazards

from amongst Tsunamis, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Floods and Wild Fires, enables the

understanding and awareness of a number of different disaster impacts and how management

would differ accordingly.

Case Study 16: UNISDR “Stop Disaster” Game

computer game about reducing the risks of natural disasters

Dialogue Process

Author: United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

(UNISDR)

Humanitarian decision-making level: The game is aimed at disaster risk management training

and community-level decision making.

Geographic region: Trialled in schools throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, Bangladesh and

Germany. The simulations are based in the Caribbean, Central Australia, the Eastern

Mediterranean and Eastern/Central Europe. However the game is designed to be applicable

globally.

Relevance of approach across scientific disciplines: The game provides introductory and basic

educational information on Climate Science, Seismology and Environmental Sciences and

provides an insight into the choices available to disaster risk managers, community leaders, town

planers and organisations.

Summary Details Key contact:

Brigitte Leoni

Read more:

More information about

UNISDR’s educational

tools

Contact at Player-

three (designer):

Pete Everett

Image 1: Caribbean Hurrican Scenario Objectives. Source www.stopdisastersgame.org

Go to the

Stop Disasters game

You can play it individually or as a team

You pick the level of difficulty and you have between 10- 20 minutes to prepare the local

community before your chosen hazard strikes and resulting disaster occurs.

During the 20 minutes, teams discuss and negotiate what they think should be done to

prepare for the disaster.

You are given a fixed budget and have to prioritise and negotiate with your team as to

how best to protect the community with the amount of money allocated. Amongst

possible preparedness options are investment in early warning systems, educational

workshops, reinforcing infrastructure and constructing flood defences.

Once the disaster has occurred, your management is reviewed on the basis of how much

damage was done and how many lives were lost.

You either pass or fail. If you pass you achieve a score which is ranked against other

online players.

Schools and community groups can use the game to work as a team to negotiate and

decide what should be done to adapt and prepare the village for potential risks.

One option for playing in a group setting is for individuals to ‘adopt’ a specific character,

taking on the role, for example, of a ‘Town Planner’, ‘Village School Head Teacher’ ‘Village

Doctor’, ‘Mother’, ‘Fisherman’ or ‘Hotel Owner’. Adopting such role play promotes

discussion on different peoples’ vulnerabilities, priorities and concerns.

Finally a period of time after the game (between 20 minutes and an hour) should be

allocated to post-game discussion. Team mates can reflect on the decisions they took, the

reasons underlying these, the outcomes and discuss what they could have done better.

MEthod

Explore

UNISDR’s range of

educational material

Go to the

Stop Disasters game

Image 2: Community Members Playing Stop Disasters in the Philippines. Source www.stopdisastersgame.org

Baseline against which impact measured:

Although yet to be formally measured, the UNISDR state that their game has been hugely

successful in educating school children on natural disasters and the type of decisions and actions

that can be taken to reduce communities’ vulnerabilities and prevent large scale destruction. In

2012 the website was visited 396,000 times and the number of hits for the year was

approximately 14 million. The game builds understanding about what happens when a specific

disaster strikes and what can be done to improve resilience and reduce vulnerability.

However, the game also encompasses a number of constraints and limitations. The game

appears to be very rigid in what is the right and wrong thing to do and leaves little room for

IMPACT

What potential do

you see for

changing and

extending the

method?

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IMPACTS

strategies to be adapted to specific cultures, communities or indigenous knowledge. The definite

nature of the game sends out very strong messages of right and wrong strategies of disaster

preparedness. It does not fully acknowledge differences of scientific opinion or areas of

uncertainty within emerging scientific understandings of risk. Furthermore, it risks luring people

into a false sense of security, thinking that if specific actions are taken they will not be vulnerable

to the disaster. This in turn could produce greater vulnerability.

Playerthree (the creators of the game) are hoping to expand the game to address these

limitations and have been approached by a number of different organisations hoping to address

these constraints to make the case studies more specific to individual locations and more fluid

and dynamic in creation. For example, The New Orleans District of the US Army Corps of

Engineers would like to develop the game to be specifically focused on Louisiana, Urban

Solutions based in Vietnam would like to help develop a more urban focused version of the

game and CARIBSAVE Climate Change Risk Atlas hope to look into how the game can adopt a

focus on sea level rise and the risks of climate change.

Playerthree state that the vision is to eventually be able to develop the game so that individual

organisations can design the variables and details for the game around specific locations,

communities and examples of natural disasters. This in itself would provide another means for

stimulating new conversations about community vulnerability and open up channels for

supporting communication of both community and ‘scientific’ information.

Informing specific humanitarian decision making process:

The approach provides a platform for knowledge exchange and decision making. It gives

community members a channel for expressing specific concerns and provides humanitarian

actors with a deeper understanding of specific community vulnerabilities. Providing community

members with channels for discussing and negotiating what they would want to do to prepare

for specific disasters, policymakers are able to consider local people’s concerns when prioritising

funding and projects. For example, the community may show an overwhelming desire for better

early warning systems or educational workshops which can then be supported by humanitarian

actors.

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study applicable to

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Image 3: Earthquake Scenario Building Construction Key Facts. Source www.stopdisastersgame.org

See Playerthree’s take on the game

For example, a group of US students took the game to a favela in Rio de Janeiro and undertook a before and after assessment of community knowledge and every participant showed an increase in knowledge after playing the game. In addition Global Hand and their partner organisation Cross Roads based in Hong Kong played the game at a conference with over 40 NGO staff, and it was described as one of the most significant methods in helping colleagues gain an experiential understanding of disaster reduction. Informing the focus of current/proposed scientific research: The approach provides a platform for discussion about specific risks which can help researchers and scientists understand community members’ information requirements and highlight where there are gaps in existing relevant research. Furthermore discussion which takes place as the game is played can provide scientists with local, indigenous knowledge to inform their research.

Image 4: Tsunami Scenario Post Disasters Impact Statistics. Source www.stopdisastersgame.org

Related case studies:

Using games— 12. Weather or Not; 13. The River Basin Game

Using computer visualisations— 24. Visualisation