Tourism is increasingly vulnerable to climate risks. Tourism businesses and communities in destinations would benefit from a more comprehensive understanding of these risks. Currently, destinations often lack coherent and smart climate risk strategies. If destinations do seek to manage climate risks, short-termism tends to prevail, while the incremental nature of measures and their confinement to the environmental management domain further undermine destination resilience.

The RiskScape project accordingly pursues the following two-fold goal: To develop an online climate risk assessment tool that allows destinations to discover their climate risk typology, and a serious game, that enables destinations to better understand climate risks and explore appropriate risk adaptations.

Cradle is responsible for the development of the Riskscape serious game, combining outputs of the project’s research and online tool into an interactive game experience that can be played with destination stakeholders.

To facilitate a group discussion and foster knowledge sharing, the game was designed in a board game format. However, partners indicated that it would be much easier to facilitate the game for remote tourism destinations if it could be played online. Consideration was therefore taken in the design to allow the boardgame to also be played digitally through any multi-user whiteboard application.

During development, the game went through 3 major prototypes, exploring the trade-offs between destination customization, depth and accuracy on one hand versus ease and duration of play on the other hand. The resulting balance allows the game to be played in roughly 2 hours and be fit to any destination, using the output of the online assessment tool to facilitate the game’s setup. A set of climate hazards, events, destination elements and risk adaptations have been created based on the research outputs, but the game is also set up to allow content to be added or changed after the project’s completion.

After the game’s design was sufficiently developed, a suitable visual style was chosen and applied. Because of the game’s dual medium, all cards and assets had be suitable for both print and digital use.

The visual style uses bold colours and a playful aesthetic to soften the weight of a serious topic, making it more approachable and engaging. This contrast helps draw people in, reduces emotional heaviness, and encourages curiosity without diminishing the importance of the subject matter.

The design visualises topics in abstract forms to allow flexible interpretation across different contexts and locations, helping the content remain relevant while inviting audiences to project their own meanings based on their situation and environment.

To follow upon project completion.