We’ve already written about our wildly successful, and sometimes damp, explorations of bringing the Wildfire Board Game to non-preparedness events (see our blog post, “It’s been mobbed!”). We’ve since taken it to three more events, including our first excursion into Solano County — another very wet day. (Note the damp tiles and the board swathed in plastic!):

True to form, we held interest long past other vendors:

To date, we’ve been to five events with the board game this year, playing 116 games with 310 people for a total of 90 hours of learning!

Of course, the game has evolved tremendously since we first played it eighteen months ago (see our blog post, Wildfire game success!):

The most important evolutions were:

1. Centering the game around one sheet of paper that gets marked up during play, and becomes a takeaway. (Thank you, Garett, for that idea!):

2. Adding the road to make the wildfire the “journey” visible and track game progress — we actually drive the car around as the game progresses. (Thank you, Gary, for that idea!):

3. Establishing the goal of the Return to Home portion of the game as having to secure the safety of home and neighborhood while having enough water and food for everyone. (Thanks to the entire design team, and many players, for that insight!):

The next steps for the Board Game are developing 5-10 minute versions, and thinking about a Play at Home edition.

The board game has been popular for enhancing community events by providing attendees with a fun, educational, and provocative experience. Players often express a desire to be able to play it at home. Community organizations have expressed enthusiastic interest in adopting a similar experience they can play with larger groups.

Enter the Wildfire Café Game. We had piloted it last year, so were excited when invited present it to a community workshop in June. Using last year’s design as a base, we applied learnings from the board game, simplified the playing board/takeaway, and shifted learning objectives more toward social and collaborative goals.

The workshop was a success! Players had great conversations about wildfire preparedness, and many expressed very positive feelings about the game’s inducements to encourage and motivate collaboration with neighbors.

But, the game succeeded in spite of itself. While it sparked the introspection and conversation we were looking for, many players were confused about the game play itself. Many gave up on trying to understand what to do. They talked about the elements they saw, instead. We went back to the drawing board.

In July, we ran a revised version at another event. The new game is more like a card game and so is more familiar to players. The revisions also make it simpler for trainers to set up and facilitate (a big concern for our partners).

Wow! It was a huge success!

We are now working to further refine the design, and enable our community partner, Napa Valley COAD, to incorporate it into their training. As they take over delivery, we’ll be thinking about making production and distribution cost-effective.

It might seem like our goal is to design games. But, really, games are a means to an end. Our real goal is to change thoughts and behaviors to help communities get through disasters better.

To understand whether we’re making progress, we’re very excited to be collaborating with researchers at the Game User Interaction and Intelligence Lab at the University of California Santa Cruz. They’re particularly interested in interested in the impacts of serious gaming — the use of gaming techniques for purposes beyond entertainment — on social dynamics, and in developing research methodologies for measuring those impacts in real-life settings. Which aligns perfectly with our interests and needs!