Games for Good: Carbon City Zero

Carbon City Zero was introduced as a card game intended to open up conversation about climate change and reducing emissions from urban heating. Its creators described the project as a way to bring different audiences into a shared, practical discussion.

What is Carbon City Zero?

The game is designed for one to four players. Each player takes the role of a city decision-maker, beginning with limited resources and inefficient infrastructure. Through a series of choices, players invest in measures intended to lower their city’s carbon output while responding to constraints familiar from real-world urban planning.

Its central aim is not to reproduce a city in full detail, but to make the trade-offs in climate action visible and discussable. Friendly competition offers a framework for considering how priorities, investment and infrastructure can affect a route towards lower emissions.

How did the project take shape?

The initial concept emerged from workshops on heat decarbonisation involving policy readers, community participants, researchers and local representatives. These sessions were used to identify a format that could turn technical questions into an accessible group activity.

After workshops and playtesting, the project was developed into a physical card game with illustrations and a concise ruleset. The work reflected an interest in reaching people who August be curious about climate policy without already being regular players of tabletop games.

Why use a card game?

Games can create a focused space for face-to-face conversation. In this case, the design brief was deliberately modest: a game that could be set up at a small table, learned quickly and completed within a relatively short session.

Those limits encouraged a clearer design. Rather than asking players to master a dense simulation, the game uses a small number of choices to prompt wider reflection on energy, buildings and collective decision-making.

Designing for accessibility

Early versions were more complicated than the final game. Accessibility review helped the team revise the use of colour and simplify the rules for people with different levels of familiarity with games. That process is a useful reminder that public-engagement tools need to be tested with the audiences they hope to include.

Using play as a learning prompt

A session can last from around twenty minutes to an hour, depending on the group. In classrooms, meetings and informal workshops, the game can serve as a starting point for discussing the practical challenges of decarbonising cities.

Its value lies in the discussion that follows: which choices seemed achievable, which barriers mattered most, and how can different groups make sense of the changes needed in the built environment?