Videogames are persuasive tools that can direct players’ pro-environmental attitudes. However, there is limited understanding of their impacts on attitudes in a climate-themed context. With a focus on message design and framing, this paper investigated the role and significance of videogames in climate communication. We conducted two parallel within-subjects experiments using two climate-themed games, Beyond Blue (N=36) and Plasticity (N=37), to examine the effects of persuasive game design in directing attitudes. We found that, regardless of message design, both games increased players’ cognitive attitudes after gameplay. We also found that Plasticity’s multi-layered message design (central loss-frame with a potential hopeful ending) increased short-term awareness of the climate-change threat and long-term hope for dealing with the issue, balancing fear and empowerment and emphasising the intricacies of message framing. By demonstrating the efficacy of persuasive design and environmental message framing in gameful interventions using explicit and implicit measures, our paper contributes to the application of interactive technology for effective climate-change communication in the short and long-term. • Videogames can be persuasive tools in climate communication through message framing. • Environmental message framing in games can influence cognitive attitudes. • Subtleties of message framing in videogames can affect the reach of the impact. • Mixed message designs can enhance game-based climate communication outcomes.

Videogames have the capacity to change people’s attitudes by engaging players with interactive gameplay, persuasive narratives, and immersive simulated realities. We present a framework that targets attitudinal evaluation in game design by describing how game mechanics, narrative, and animation features form player experiences that influence attitudes. To test this framework, we conducted an interventional study (N=36) using a repeated measures design that tested the effects of a climate-themed simulation game, Beyond Blue, on players’ explicit and implicit pro-environmental attitudes in both the short and long term. We also measured the effects of feature-based design (mechanics, narrative, and animation) and elemental design on attitudes. Our results showed that the climate-themed intervention impacted participants’ short-term cognitive attitudes. We also found that Beyond Blue’s overall mechanics and narrative features were the main significant predictors of pro-environmental cognitive attitudes. Challenge design was the only significant element that predicted participants’ cognitive attitudes. Our results demonstrate that climate communication can benefit from a carefully designed theme-oriented videogame as an effective creative tool.

Videogames can be persuasive assets in climate communication. However, there is insufficient knowledge on how to employ specific game design aspects to influence attitudes in the context of climate change. We developed a novel conceptual Climate-Oriented Persuasive Edutainment (C.O.P.E.) model to describe how game design features and elements wrapped in a climate-themed message frame can contribute to pro-environmental attitudes. We evaluated the design decisions in a loss-framed climate-themed videogame (Plasticity) as our case study. In a repeated measures interventional experiment (N=37), we examined the effects of Plasticity on players’ explicit and implicit pro-environmental attitudes in the short and long term. We also assessed participants’ experiences of the attitudinal capacity of three features of game design (mechanics, narrative, animation) and their relevant elements. We found that playing Plasticity influenced participants’ threat perception and cognitive attitudes in the short term. The overall mechanics and narrative features were predictors of participants’ climate threat perception, while the overall animation design predicted pro-environmental cognitive attitude. The storyline was the only element that predicted both threat perception and cognitive attitude. Also, the challenge design predicted threat perception and the exploration design predicted cognitive attitudes. Our work shows that a theme-pertinent, detail-oriented game design can be effective in enhancing climate communication.

Models of users are a way to understand and improve the usability of computer interfaces. We present here a model in ACT-R cognitive-modeling language that interacts with a publicly available driving simulation as a simple analog for robot interfaces. The model interacts with the unmodified Java interface by incorporating a novel use of bitmap parsing. The model's structure starts to describe the knowledge a human operator of a robot must have. The model also indicates some of the aspects of the task will be difficult for the operator. For example, the model's performance makes quantitative predictions about how robot speed will influence navigation quality, correlating well to human performance. While the model does not cover all aspects of human-robot interaction, it illustrates how providing user models access to an interface through its bitmap can lead to more accurate and more widely applicable model users.