Games

Want to bring visitors to your site -- and keep them coming back? Challenge their wits and skills with an interactive Web game.

Gotham Gazette’s Bump the Birds

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20090707/201/2961

Gotham Gazette, Published by Citizens Union Foundation (New York, NY)

Attempt to alight on the ballot as Hektor Heron, a comptroller candidate endorsed by the local party. You can try pecking your way through as Pidge the Populist, an insurgent City Council candidate. Or you can try to strut on the general election ballot as the third party candidate, Starla the Citizen Upstart.
Don’t let your chance to get on the ballot fly away from you.

Light up New York City's electric grid by deciding how the city should conserve or produce energy.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/games/switch/games/index.php?game=switch

Gotham Gazette, Published by Citizens Union Foundation (New York, NY)

If New Yorkers continue to use electricity at the current rate, they’ll need a total of 72 million megawatt hours annually by 2030. They used about 50 million megawatt hours in 2005. With such a large gap to close the Gotham Gazette highlights the choices that need to be made: Should NYC ramp up generation? Take drastic measures to use less? Or both? Play Switch and you decide.
Switch is a matching game, like Concentration or Memory. Click on any square in the grid to turn your first card over. Then find its match. Once you find a matching pair, you get to see what that measure would do. Then you decide whether it’s right or wrong for New York City. When you’re done, “flip the switch” to see whether your slate of choices can meet the growing demand.

Darfur is Dying

http://www.darfurisdying.com/

In the face of the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan, mtvU partnered with the Reebok Human Rights Foundation and the International Crisis Group. The three companies began a contest to “...[Bring] together student technology and activism to help stop the genocide in Darfur.” The winner is “Darfur is Dying a narrative-based simulation to raise awareness of the daily lives of the Darfurian refugees in the Sudan. The “game” is a thoroughly depressing, eye-opening “game.” Players begin by selecting a character to walk through a sparse desert for a single jug of water while avoiding the patrols of Janjaweed militia. If successful, the next level focuses on keeping your refugee camp healthy amid attacks, food and water shortages. The site offers links to help with the crisis throughout the game and links to various groups, government contacts, and assistance funds.

Minnesota Public Radio - Medical Matchmaker

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2006/01/13_haega_matchmaker/

As part of its Prescription for Change series on emplyee health care, MPR offers this interactive tool that generates 12 pairs of fictional health insurance plans and asks users to choose a favorite from each pair. Based on those decisions, it shows what features—such as monthly premium, provider choice and deductible—are most important to the user in choosing a health plan, then tells what existing plan is the best fit.

TheState.com - Saving Columbia

http://www.thestateonline.com/news/flash/colaburns/cola_burn.html

As part of its Burning of Columbia special report, The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., and TheState.com created a game that helped users track Gen. William T. Sherman’s ruinous march on the city 140 years ago. To save the city from burning, players must answer the quiz questions correctly. Each wrong answer engulfs a section of the city in flames.

The Snowplow Game (Boston.com)

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/getwrapped/game

As part of its holiday-themed Get Wrapped promotional campaign, the Boston Globe’s Boston.com offered visitors the chance to drive a snowplow through the city’s blizzard-covered streets. Created by Boston-based interactive studio The Barbarian Group, the game has players racing the clock to collect snowflakes, peppermints and mystery gifts, passing real Boston landmarks as they clear the roads. Players’ high scores are collected and displayed, allowing the whole city to compete with one another for snowplowing glory.

DR (Denmark) - Virtual Replay (World Cup 2006)

http://bgi.dr.dk/sporten/index.php

While this site is in Danish, it is easy to understand. Every goal of the 2006 World Cup has been created in an animated format that allows the user to change the video speed and viewing angle. The user can even play the role of the soccer ball.

KQED - Smart Growth Game

http://www.kqed.org/w/baywindow/homefront/game.html

KQED, San Francisco’s public television station, designed a city planning game that gives players five different decisions to make about how to develop their city. At the end of the game, it explains the impact of each choice and it scores players on how well-planned their cities are.

The NYC Budget Game

http://www.gothamgazette.com/budgetgame/budgetgame.html

The Gotham Gazette is behind this interactive game that lets visitors balance New York’s $44.5 billion budget. Starting with the city’s current $3.8 million deficit, users add percentage points to specific taxes and remove money from specific expenditures until the deficit becomes a surplus. Pop-up windows let users know when new taxes are going to get you in trouble with voters, state leaders or even the federal government. After playing, users can compare their budget to the mayor’s with a handy pie chart, submit their proposed budget to The Gazette and talk about the game on the site’s message boards.

Topeka (KS.) Capital-Journal City Council Survivor Game

http://www.cjonline.com/webindepth/survivor/multimedia/survivor_mov.shtml

Confronted with reporting on an unruly City Council, the Capital-Journal asked, “What if the Topeka City Council members were on the TV show ‘Survivor’...?” Those interested could go online and call Council members to account for their behavior by “voting” them off.
>Watch the promo for the game—in true Survivor style. (A QuickTime Movie)

"Plan Your Future Park"

http://www.gothamgazette.com/parksgame/

New York City, NY—The Gotham Gazette’s newest interactive game, “Plan Your Future Park” lets you plan a city park, making choices that communities always have to face. Do you want dogs? Skateboarding? How will you prevent crime? In addition to selecting from “multiple choice” solutions, a message board allows users to communicate specific opinions and concerns. See article.

Seattle Times "Ax and Tax"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/links/axtax/

“Last year, we asked you to try your hand at solving the state’s worst budget shortfall in decades. Guess what? The problem is bigger now.” So says the introduction to the Seattle Times’ latest web-based calculator. As the title implies, you choose what to cut from the budget and what to tax additionally to fix a $2.45 billion state budget shortfall. Be careful, though, as pop-up windows in response to your choices will warn you that people won’t lose their cherished programs without a fight, and that Washington voters are none to fond of taxes. The Times plans to compile the data submitted by visitors into an article about budget priorities.

2003 Minnesota Public Radio Budget Balancer

http://news.mpr.org/features/2003/03/10_newsroom_budgetsim/

Batten Award

Minnesota Public Radio invites you to be governor for a day and try to solve the state’s $4.2 billion tax deficit in this Batten Award-winning project. The budget balancer offers a wide array of choices for balancing the budget, including across the board spending cuts, increasing property taxes, cutting specific programs, and delaying payments. The balancer even gives you comments on your choices, warning you about potential political and economic fallout that could result from your decisions. Choose carefully.

2005 Minnesota Public Radio Budget Balancer

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2005/03/budget/

In a follow-up to its 2003 game, MPR once again invites users to step into the governor’s shoes and do battle with a $4.6 billion deficit. A slick, simplified Flash interface puts state budget options on a single screen and instantly reflects players’ spending or revenue choices on its scoreboard. Users can now also write in why they chose to cut or add spending to a particular category, generating possible reporting opportunities.

Seattle Times "You Build It" Transportation Project Calculator

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/links/transportationgame/calculator/

You decide which projects should go in the budget and which should just go away with this interactive Seattle Times form. You get to choose the level of funding for a variety of transportation and transit “megaprojects,” such as building HOV lanes, renovating highways, and setting up new bus and rail stations. Then you have to allocate new taxes to pay for them all. You can also submit your (hopefully) balanced budget to the paper for use in a future story about transportation solutions.

Washingtonpost.com - Veep-O-Matic 2004

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/elections/2004/veepomatic.htm

This exercise invites people to select from 16 different criteria the five qualities—such as military service or congressional experience—they would most like to see in a Democratic vice presidential candidate. Then it matches those choices with possible candidates to be John Kerry’s running mate. It provides lists of any of the candidates’ names and turns up biographical history, including past actions that could help or hinder their selection.

MSNBC.com - The Big Picture: Campaign Adviser

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6268738/

MSNBC.com continues “The Big Picture” series with a feature that allows users to take on the role of a presidential campaign adviser. Pick a candidate, choose your issues, decide your battleground states and produce a 30-second campaign ad. Once finished, users message one other about strategy choices or use their ads to get people to vote for their candidate in MSNBC.com’s poll.

PublicRadio.org - Consumer Consequences

http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/

As part of its Sustainability series, PublicRadio.org asks, “What would the world look like if everyone lived like me?” By answering questions ranging from your electricity use, trash disposal, transportation, diet and shopping habits, this game tells you how many Earths we would need if everyone on the planet lived like you.

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About J-Lab

J-Lab helps journalists and citizens use digital technologies to develop new ways for people to participate in public life with projects on innovations in journalism, citizen media, news games, interactive stories, entrepreneurship, research, training, and publications.

Transforming journalism today. Reinventing it for tomorrow.