Notes Towards a Solarpunk Game Design - Overview

I've always been interested in game design and how subtly it can teach and influence us. It's not only how a given game is constructed on the surface, but also what emergent behaviours it can induce in us - and make us internalize, more or less consciously.

I find Solarpunk fascinating as a genre which is connected to - but distinct from - other kinds of climate and science fiction. Its many perspectives are an attempt to balance a big, global narrative of saving the planet and creating a sustainable civilization with a very humane and communal perspective of our way there.

I've been working on this blogpost for a year and I see that it's never going to be as comprehensive as I would like to. In the spirit of "done is better than perfect", let me then present you with my Notes Towards - and hope that you find them useful!

Game Type Legend

V - Video Game
B - Board Game / Card Game
R - Role Playing Game / Storytelling Game

What makes a game Solarpunk?

If you haven't heard about this genre-movement before, I recommend checking out the manifesto and my Lenses and Foundations essay. Multiple creators can approach it from very different directions, highlighting various aspects of Solarpunk. Let's look at some possible perspectives:

Facing the Real Changing Climate

While it's not a mainstream genre yet, we do have quite a few games talking about the Climate Catastrophe and how we can change to prevent it - or just how to survive. These games can be seen as quite bleak and hopeless, as they show us just how hard it will be to alter our civilization. Yet, all of them have a clear win condition where we reach sustainability, whether more or less simplified.

A lot of the entries in this category are strategy and resource management games on a global scale. These include Beecarbonize^V, Half-Earth Socialism^V, Fate of the World^V as well as Earth Rising^B, Daybreak^B and Catan: New Energies^B.

More of them can be found in the List of climate change video games article on Wikipedia.

We can find climate themes and mechanics in multiple other games, including in the Civilization^V or Anno^V series, but it's not the main focus of these games.

Some people point to games set against harsh natural conditions, such as Frostpunk^V, Frostpunk 2^V or Against The Storm^V as potentially Solarpunk, but I wouldn't go that far. While good base-builders and resource managers, they don't carry all the themes and lessons of other examples noted above - and don't really help us imagine the upcoming struggles of our civilization.

Similarly, I wouldn't list post-apocalyptic games here - even if the science underlying their worldbuilding is real. I'm still on the fence about post-post-apocalyptic themes, since a strong emphasis on Rebuilding might be extremely useful in Solarpunk narratives of creating resilient, parallel infrastructures even today.

It's worth noting that a lot of games here come from strategy and resource management genres, assuming that the player already has the power and agency to make decisions which will be implemented globally. While it would be nearly impossible to design a game without that assumption, it's good to be aware that it oversimplifies a lot of politics of both the natural world and Solarpunk.

I haven't yet encountered a game talking about the challenges of the Climate Change and the cultural, economical, infrastructural transformations from an individual's or community's perspective. These veer easily into either post-apocalypse or some kind of survival (The Flame In The Flood^V, The Long Dark^V), without a broader context.

Sustainable City Builders

You might be surprised to hear that there are next to no realistic sustainable city builders out there. A vast majority of such games seem to have a lot of hardcoded assumptions which force you to create an unsustainable car-centric concrete desert (unless you buy some DLCs with solar panels, parks and gardens!). It's also well known that some games specifically decided to limit non-neoliberal solutions for urban planning, as noted by The Jacobin. So don't expect to play Solarpunk Skylines anytime soon.

There were a few voices calling for a game where you start with a regular modern city and climate-proof it, making it more sustainable and disaster-resilient while racing against the clock - but I haven't seen any example of such a game.

Aesthetics

This is probably the widest category: games using optimistic, environmental and sustainable aesthetics, with solar panels, wind turbines and beautiful clear skies. Sometimes they use the Solarpunk label themselves, other times - it's fans who call them this way.

Those games do not need to be set on Earth, in our reality, they do not need to tackle Climate Change or even acknowledge its existence. Some of them might incorporate some elements of the real-world solutions in the gameplay, but usually it's just another aesthetic.

We can list some chill, pastoral games such as the widely known Stardew Valley^V, My Time At Portia^V, Outbound^V and similar.

Another game in this "chill survival" category is Solarpunk^V (the title of which makes searching for any other Solarpunk game extremely annoying). For a position proudly claiming the name of the movement, it seems not to be too ambitious in its game designs, effectively proposing a floating-island version of Minecraft with solar panels on top.

Loftia^V MMO seems to also build on the theme of the floating islands, wind turbines and greenery, but I like that it focuses on community much more than other titles on this list. It's not released yet, but if done right, I could consider it a nice vision of a "realized Solarpunk utopia", even if not very realistic.

Going back to "garden survival", the Wildmender^V rebuilding an oasis could be considered Solarpunk by some, even if it doesn't talk about communities too much.

Some Anno games, like Anno 2070^V and Anno 2205^V feature a "sustainability"-flavored faction, but don't dwell too deep on actual ecosystem problems. Similarly, in far science-fiction games such as Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth^V we can choose a "green technology tree" which might even give us some eco-flavored events, but it's not too deep.

I wouldn't put Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri^V in the same category though, as the philosophy of sustainability and coexistence present in the game is far deeper - and far more involved in the gameplay - as other examples. This one could be Solarpunk in spirit.

A heavily Moebius-inspired game called Synergy^V has a good chance of implementing some Solarpunk mechanics in addition to its aesthetics, but it's too early to say for sure. Demos and Early Access seem to be focused on the "ecological post-apocalypse" themes.

A small Loddlenaut^V welcomes us to clean up the oceans on an alien planet, but doesn't go very deep on the ecosystems or the problems of the Earth.

There is a small array of very artistic, poetic and/or spiritual games in this category as well, such as ABZU^V, Season^V or Flower^V, which I would count more as experiences than actual games.

Outside of the very last few games, I'm generally not a fan of calling something Solarpunk just because of the aesthetics used - especially if they mask the extractive, imperialist game mechanics underneath.

Environmental Rebellion

Some games choose to focus on the themes of rebellion against the unsustainable civilization in different forms. They don't necessarily need to use the aesthetics of the movement, but could be close to some part of its philosophy: be it punk, or spiritual connection with the environment.

In an otherwise dark and cyberpunk Citizen Sleeper^V, one of the possible plots is working in a greenhouse commune away from the noise of space capitalism. Going further, there's a possible ending of joining a hive-mind of plants and fungi - which would be fascinating, if it didn't force you to abandon your humanity and all the connections and communities you built throughout the game.

Solarpunkification^V is a tiny game where as a guerilla gardener you plant gardens in abandoned buildings.

Degrowth, Rewilding, Philosophy

Earthborne Rangers^B,R is a cooperative card game (with mechanics similar to pretty popular Arkham Horror^B,R) focused on a very human-level story of the forest rangers in a world already rewilded and rebuilt after a Climate Catastrophe. While there is some techno-magic, the game really wants to focus on relationships between the humans and the ecosystems around them, actively including them in its game mechanics and stories.

An ecosystem reclamation "reverse city builder", Terra Nil^V quickly became a cherished darling of multiple Solarpunk communities. The gameplay loop has you use (oversimplified) technology powered by renewable energy sources to re-build barren lands into multiple ecosystems, dealing with gamified limitations.

Unintended Consequences of the Setting...

While Terra Nil is a really beautiful game, it might not exactly be what I call Solarpunk. The Escapist's review noted the re-greened world it imagines has no people in it. Sharing a quote:

It seems to imply that there’s no hope in trying to hold back the slow tide of collapse, that no amount of collective action or kindness will save us from the inevitable… So much for there always being a way out. Any hope lies not in prevention but in a cure.

And what is that cure?

Terra Nil makes no explicit statement about it. The game presents itself simply as a challenge of restoration. Implicit, however, is the means of restoration: the wind turbines, toxin scrubbers, irrigators, calcifiers, and all the other marvelous technologies that allow us to treat this devastated world as a whiteboard. And beyond that, there is the typically game-y approach of providing objectives to tick off on the way to 100% rewilding.

As much as I understand how this part of Terra Nil's worldbuilding might have been dictated by its gameplay, it makes me struggle to call it Solarpunk. There are no people in its rewilded world - so no way to talk about balance or a sustainable civilization. We only got a near-technosolutionist vision of sustainability modelled without those pesky human variables.

I'm not saying that the game should completely shift its goal to fully animate 3D humans moving around, but having a level with a "sustainable city tile" interacting with its environment in a novel way would change its tone a lot.

...and Mechanics

Other games mentioned above fall into a similar, but slightly different trap: well-designed and playable mechanics clash strongly with the game's theme.

Catan: New Energies introduces cooperation mechanics, but can still only have one winner. This promotes temporary alliances, where everyone aims to backstab each other at the right moment. It's strange to read the designers' hopeful messaging clashing with what the playtesters reported:

“They said, ‘It’s fascinating, because I really wasn’t sure what to do. I had this moral thing, but I wanted to win the game.’”

Why would we want to put players in this situation?

On the other hand, Daybreak - created by the designers of Pandemic and Pandemic Legacy - makes some extremely problematic geopolitical statements by balancing the in-game factions.

The cooperative game (either we all win or none does) allows us to play as Europe, the US, China, or... Majority World, meaning several continents and regions of the globe bundled into one. The MW faction is balanced as the hardest / weakest one. Since it doesn't have a unified government like the others (why would India, Africa, South America and Southeast Asia do?!) it's the slowest to react to a lot of challenges and needs a lot of support from the other players not to collapse in the very first turns.

I played Daybreak extensively and I can report that in the Solo Mode the factions strength looks more or less like this: Europe statistically wins in the 1st turn, the US in the 2nd, China in the third, while the Majority World always loses.

While the geopolitical portrayal of the Big Powers abandoning the Global South might be terrifyingly correct, I really dislike the choice to take away a lot of agency and diversity of the people by bundling them into "...and the rest" faction. I know that if I choose to use "Daybreak" in the classroom I'll essentially teach the students to see the Global South as passive and without much say in our climate future.

Another of my criticisms of Daybreak is the "flavor" of the cards, where a "symmetrical card" of a different type gives you the exact same result. This leads to situations where a grassroot movement involving almost every single citizen is about as powerful as a few venture capitalists backing "green tech".

If I were to choose a game to use as an educator, I'd probably go with a slightly less polished "Earth Rising" over "Daybreak" for exactly these reasons.

Community-Based Narratives

Some games put emphasis on other aspects of Solarpunk, putting communities and their sustainability (both literal and emotional) above resource management or involved ecosystem mechanics.

One of my favorite examples is a visual novel called I Was A Teenage Exocolonist^V. It tells a story of a child raised in a "utopian" commune on humanity's first colony outside of our Solar System. It's a wonderful exploration of communal joy, grief, friendship and love set against big questions about humanity being the aliens to local ecosystems. It's made to be replayed, and while not perfect - I really love how it uses implicit rewards and emergent narratives to encourage players to hang out with other characters instead of just maxing their skills.

Looking at the pen-and-paper RPGs, we have quite a few interesting positions!

Wanderhome^R is a non-violent game of anthropomorphic animals having pastoral adventures based on the Moomin stories. It would be easy to dismiss as childish, but it's incredibly well-written and thought-provoking, where just the character creation can make the players emotional. The world of Wanderhome has just been rocked by a huge war and welcomes us to meet refugees, orphans, traumatized heroes and people who lost all their hope, with no magical mechanics to "cure" or "fix" them, just slow emotional healing.

If you want to experience some more action, a post-post-apocalyptic Wildsea^R offers a pirate fantasy very different from the orcs and dwarves of J. R. R. Tolkien. Its world was destroyed centuries ago by the Verdancy, an explosion of trees and greenery. Now humanity and other species (such as sentient fungi, humanoid cacti, spider hiveminds) sail the ever-regenerating treetops on chainsaw-propelled ships. As much as the setting sounds like a gimmick, it still poses a lot of questions about human relationship with the ecosystems - but this time, the squirrels might be the apex predators. Wildsea's mechanics don't promote violence or aggressions, allowing players to resolve any problem creatively, with the skills they have.

Legacy: Life Among The Ruins^R puts communities and rebuilding after an apocalypse at the very heart of its story. The players take control of both a single character and a faction at once, allowing years and decades to pass between specific sessions. This "big picture" focus allows us to lie in the shadow of trees planted by the characters' parents and grandparents, witness consequences of old decisions playing out today. It's a game where the player can almost literally choose to use a piece of technology as a "+3 sword" or to build it into the community's infrastructure, serving for the decades to come. It has several suggested settings, but The Engine of Life^R expansion plays very well with Solarpunk tropes.

Other games, like the Hard Wired Island^R use the cyberpunk aesthetic to tell very communal stories, supporting unions and anarchist direct action. HWI reminds us that in a lot of the original cyberpunk fiction the cybernetics didn't "magically dehumanize" someone or "steal their soul", but instead made them dependent on the corporate maintenance, their politics and whims. It shares a lot of tropes with the previously-mentioned Citizen Sleeper.

I haven't played The Roots of Pacha^V, but I heard a lot of good things about it. "A Stone Age Stardew Valley" heavily encourages the player to engage with their community, as without their perspectives they cannot invent a lot of crucial technologies and upgrades. I really like that mechanic.

Other Games

There are a lot of other games I would like to analyze deeper, but for now let me just mention them:

• Fully Automated RPG^R - a big and rich Solarpunk RPG game with violent mechanics and an upcoming campaign
• Solarpunk 2050^R - a Solarpunk setting for FATE RPG
• Coyote & Crow^R - an RPG game set in the futuristic Americas if they were never colonized by the Europeans
• Solarpunk Futures^R - a storytelling card game of future generations remembering their modern ancestors
• Why We Fight^R - a violent game of eco-punks fighting fascism to build a brighter, greener future
• Hack The Planet^R - a more cyberpunk game of fighting the corporate overlords among climate disasters
• Mikiwam: Solarpunk Herbalism^V - a tea-making visual novel
• Alba: a wildlife adventure^V - recommended by narF
• Anarcute^V - a protest game recommended by narF
• Eco^V
• Green New Deal Simulator^V - another card game similar to Half Earth or Beecarbonize, but this time focusing strongly on the United States and fighting unemployment
• Sky - children of the light^V - a spiritual successor of Journey
• Generation Exile^V - looking for a sustainability on a generation ship (because we destroyed the planet)

Other Resources

• Playing Nature - Ecology in Video Games - a book by the University of Minnesota
• From Pixels to Politics: How Video Games Can Inspire a Green New World
• Utopia on the Tabletop - a publication on solarpunk settings inspiring empathy, cooperation, and visions of ecological harmony
• Applied Hope: The Solarpunk & Utopias Game Jam on itch.io
• Games for the future 2 - a summary of a German university game design project that I took part in

Next Episode

I have a lot more to share with you on the topics of Solarpunk and game design, but I believe that most of those topics deserve their own blogposts. What you can expect:

• What do I want from a Solarpunk game?
• How to design a game teaching Degrowth?
• Where is the conflict / drama in Solarpunk games?
• Can we make games about communities without limiting player agency?