Snow Seeker

Abstract

Climate change is transforming our planet, drowning ecosystems with the polar meltdown and pushing many species into their extinction. This project explores the predictions of climate science through the conceptualization and design of a role-playing game experience, Snow Seeker, which visualizes a future Earth adversely affected by climate change, depicting the likely transformations to the Antarctic and other ecosystems from multiple perspectives and see how such transformations affect every species on the planet. Using the latest theories framed by the scientific community to explain climate change and combining them with game engines and procedural 3D tools, the game environments created for Snow Seeker are designed to represent how the world will look in the future if the South Pole completely melts and global temperature goes above 4°C. Through storytelling and gamification, the players will embark on a journey for survival, looking for basic supplies as they travel across the globe over harsh and volatile ecosystems, witnessing how the lands change and realizing what could happen if we fail to control global temperature rise and climate change. Players can choose to play as different species and experience the landscapes as such and gauge how each is affected differently. Through speculation of such a future, the hope is to change people’s attuide and encourage them to work together and solve the climate crisis.