I joined the PLANETARY FUTURES summer school on ecological games & responsible development at the Cologne Game Lab between 31 August and 2 September 2026.
There were very interesting talks about planetary knowledge, deep playfulness, games from the future, making sustainable games and designing experiences about the climate crisis. All participants contributed their own work which meant walls full of interesting research and projects.
For my participation, I presented our Regenerate IGDA game jam entry GROWFFITI talked about solarpunk and we practised with Episodic Future Thinking. Throughout all three days I tooted a thread of interesting things here
This summer school has been a marvellous experience. Filled with interesting thinking, new input on serious / ecological gaming and lovely people who are trying to make the world a better place with play, games and wonder.
Undercurrents of the urgency, frustration and necessary hope that come with this attempt were also felt and discussed.
The keynotes ran from the very abstract What would the shape of planetary knowledge be to the very practical playing a demo of All Will Rise together. The food was vegetarian/vegan which was a relief as many eco-related events still bring out meat for lunch. In the evening we played each others’ games and even a few games from the students at the Cologne Game Lab. I am grateful this was a multi-day event. Gathering so many people and topics together, making it well worth coming all the way to Cologne for. I appreciate that this takes an enormous amount of organising.
I did find that the research mostly seemed to come from the media studies leg of games research and there could be more games effect research present – coming from experimental psychology. Of course this is biased as this is my own background.
I am going to take this as a sign that to this wonderful tapestry of planet-saving-play, I might have something useful to add.
