Aleah Dudek
- Theme: Climate justice
Mechanic: Economic simulation
Every player benefits from pollution at first, but emissions secretly accumulate and trigger disasters that hit the poorest players hardest.
2. Theme: Housing insecurity
Mechanic: Tile laying survival
Pets move through temporary homes as buildings disappear. You don’t control the world, only how long your animal can remain safe.
3. Theme: Forgotten deaths and systemic erasure
Mechanic: Hidden information and area control
Players move through a city where invisible ghosts represent unrecorded victims. Only by standing still can you see them, but doing so makes you vulnerable.
4. Theme: Climate change
Mechanic: Cooperative survival
The dragon’s fire represents rising heat and disasters. Players can fight it, but every attack makes it burn hotter.
5. Theme: Climate refugees
Mechanic: Tile erosion and migration
Rising tides wake the Kraken. Each round, parts of the ocean map sink, forcing fleets to flee while the monster grows.
I really like how these ideas use mechanics to communicate the message instead of just layering a theme on top, the systems are the storytelling here. The climate justice concept is especially strong because the delayed consequences mirror real life in a way that feels kind of unsettling (in a good way). I’m also really into the “standing still to see the ghosts” idea, that’s such a quietly powerful mechanic. Overall these feel poetic but still playable, which is a hard balance to hit.