Project Lily Pad : A Serious Geogame
Project Lily Pad is a Serious Geogame developed over Summer 2018 with the purpose of teaching spatial thinking in terms of disaster resilience. The game is set in the city of Dickinson, Texas, where Hurricane Harvey made its presence on 30th August 2017. Day 1 of the game requires the player to think spatially in unfamiliar territory and navigate using instructions and a paper map to drop off supplies. In Day 2, the player plays as a Cajun Navy officer, (Cajun Navy are an informal group of rescuers from Louisiana and adjacent areas who helped in the hurricane scenario) rescuing people and dropping them off at locations that have elevation, resources and are recognizable as landmarks, coined as “Lily Pads”.
The game was developed integrating Geographic Information System (GIS) which was achieved by navigating and transferring data from Open Street Map to ArcGIS to CityEngine to Unity. The elevation model and flood data was used to model the city and recreate the game with almost real life accuracy.
This game is targeted to all audiences as every citizen should be aware of disaster resilience with respect to flooding or hurricanes. We hope the game can set a framework for many such games in the future as well as play an important role in preparing people better for disasters in the future.