Westfield Athenaeum Library
puzzles & Games
Against all Odds Against All Odds is about the global refugee experience from the time people are forced to leave their countries of origin to the beginning of their new life abroad. A series of short challenges illustrates the complexity and danger of the refugee experience.
Akrasia is an action/maze game based on an abstract representation of addiction, with multiple endings based on the players' actions.
Ayiti: The Cost of Life is a game that challenges its players to manage a rural family of five in Haiti over four years and keep them healthy, get them educated, and help them survive. Developed in a unique partnership between youth in an after school program and a professional game developer, the game has been played over a half million times and has proven to be a hit as both an engaging game and as a tool for education.
Branches of Power: Play all three branches of the U.S. government and experience the powers (and limitations!) of each branch while learning the rules and regulations in the law making process.
Breakthroughs to Cures is an online idea-generating game set in a future where a neurological disease is expected to affect over 100 million Americans. The sci-fi scenario is used as a backdrop to encourage players to figure out how to improve the current medical research system and develop new ideas to share with the medical community at large.
Budgetball is a physical outdoor, sports-like game designed to increase awareness of the national debt and promote fiscal responsibility by rewarding strategic thinking and problem solving through a unique game design and rule set. Played year round by college students, the winning team of the season gets to play a championship match with local policy makers in the heart of Washington, DC.
Collapsus is a multimedia adventure that seamlessly blends a short film, interactive mini-games and news clips that the player experiences all at once. As the world enters a new form of energy use, the transition causes more problems than it solves. The game not only draws in the audiences that traditional documentaries weren’t capturing, but also creates an immersive experience that comments on the global and political issues of a massive energy transition.
Darfur is Dying is a web-based, viral video game that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan. It is designed to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur and empower college students to help stop the crisis.
Energyville represents the average industrialized city and its consumption of energy. Players must create energy sources in the present in order to create a sustainable future city in 2030.
Martian Boneyards is a game of scientific collaboration and problem-solving in the new, spectacular, high definition, massively-multiplayer online environment (MMO) called Blue Mars. EdGE@TERC and VSE have teamed together to bring expertise in innovative science education and state-of-the-art MMO gaming technologies to create an unprecedented opportunity for scientific knowledge building.
People Power is about politics, strategy and social change. As a leader of a popular movement you fight against tough adversaries who control the police, the army, the bureaucracy, even the media. The only weapons in your hand are your strategic skill and your ingenuity.
Re-Mission is a video game that gives young people with cancer a sense of power and control over their disease. It's a fun, effective tool that improves treatment adherence, cancer knowledge and self-efficacy.
Rizk: Inspired by sci-fi posters of the 50s and 60s and created as a part of the Science Museum’s "Climate Changing" series of projects, Rizk is an original strategy game set on an alien world where players must find resources to nurture and protect their plant whilst defending it from threats. Every action you take affects the level of risk to your plant. The game is a unique metaphor created to explain risk and its relation to our climate.
The ReDistricting Game educates, engages, and empowers citizens around the issue of congressional redistricting. As is illustrated in the game, our system is subject to a range of manipulations and helps fuel long-term political polarization in the U.S. Those empowered to change the system – congress - have the least incentive to do so.
(content taken from Games for Change http://www.gamesforchange.org/.)
