Civic Games Lab, part of the Delhi-based SMART NGO, has built a game named “Fix it” that is inspired by the pollution crisis in the city and which lets players take on the role of politician, builder, or citizen to create a city with the least amount of air pollution possible.
For more than 20 years, SMART or Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation has been creating awareness about gender-related concerns across India.
“Fix it” has been designed by Abeer Kapoor, Priyambada Mohanty, Arpit Chugh and Meher Rajpal. The designers said that they had made an effort to design a methodology that sits at the nexus of storytelling, development communication, and games.
Abeer Kapoor, founder of Civic Games Lab, believes playing such board games may encourage citizens to take an active role in their communities. Speaking to Frontline, he said: “At the moment, most development communication modes are top-down, hierarchical, and paternalistic in style, mirroring the teacher-student relationship in the classroom. We wanted to break this paradigm to create a more participatory area where players, users, and people may discover their own path to solutions.”
He also believes that games and simulations provide students with a system to freely immerse themselves in and learn about the consequences of their actions, and inactions, and create their own pathways to involvement.
In “Fix it”, players construct a city with sustainable growth in mind. The game’s components include an adjustable AQI (air quality index) meter and wind direction. Abeer Kapoor was inspired by Sim City, the first city-building game, which he says gave rise to a new generation of urban planners and city builders.
He said: “I think India urgently needs a city-building game. At that point, I realised it had to be about how cities are built. The challenge here is that players have their own agendas to seize control of the city, while also possibly working together to improve air quality. So, they must fight each other and the board, to prioritise livelihoods and green open spaces, to radically reimagine the structure of their city to fight air pollution.”
He also feels that it is important for citizens to participate in the building of cities. He said: “Right now, we perceive our cities as immobile, non-participatory places where events happen to us rather than having any influence over them. There is little to no citizen participation. Therefore, instead of being at the mercy of a lobby of builders who are creating unsustainably built homes, we need to view cities as malleable, evolving, spaces built for us, designed for citizens.”
The group’s first game, called The Poll, was released in 2018. Every week, the team gathers to play board games, including some they have created.
The Poll simulates the Indian election process in order to increase voter familiarity with the political process. It contains every component of an election, including funding, constituencies, the Election Commission, manifestos, rallies, and media, and even disastrous occurrences that could tip the balance right before voting.
Players contest Lok Sabha seats, choose parties, create manifestos, and engage in debate. Based on the company’s own research, the playing cards include actual Lok Sabha constituencies from all over the country and issues unique to them.
The developer has also designed games based on gender, nutrition, and digital rights. Additionally, it has created numerous variations of FARZI, a straightforward card game with a quiz style, to combat false information and fake news. The Bihar State government’s rural livelihoods programme called JEEVIKA introduced its Hindi card game called Poshan ki Potli, which aims to address the problem of malnutrition in rural Bihar.
The developer’s games have been introduced to schools and colleges all over India.
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