“Changing the Game—Neighbourhood”: An Energy Transition Board Game, Developed in a Co-Design Process: A Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It would have been interesting to present statistical results that reflected in what measures the users after playing the definitive proposed game favored the use of new cleaner technologies, the reduction of CO, which most unpopular measures were taken to a greater extent and in which most unpopular measures got more resistance. This would have allowed us to know to what extent the game favors citizen awareness, also knowing, in what measures it is necessary to put more emphasis for the change of consciousness and the taking of action.

On the other hand, I think it would have been interesting to incorporate social and emotional elements (of group identity, commitment, ethics, ...) when making decisions that would reinforce the commitment to proactive measures in the use of technologies cleaner. We know that decision-making is largely supported by personal psychosocial elements and belonging to the group that must be taken into account, apart from the information provided in relation to the subject (type of energy, effects of climate change, etc.)

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, please find my comments in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Reviewer 3 Report

The research is very interesting and well described. I would suggest only two points:

It might be interesting for the results to describe the sample in detail (how old were the subjects? How many for each age? How many men and how many women? Is there a gender difference in the results obtained?

The text talks about pupils in phase 3 and it is said that some of the participants in this phase were the same as in the previous phases. (Participants in this phase were some of the co-designers from the previous phases) How many of these were also involved in the early phases? Did you notice a difference between who was involved in the previous stages and who was "naive" about the game? 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

• A brief summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper and its main contributions.

This paper is a case study of co-designing a serious game about energy transition. It describes the development of a board game to be used with citizens in group sessions, simulating the effects of combining renewable energy sources and energy-saving measures. It was initiated by scientists as part of a research project on energy transition, at the neighborhood scale. From the conception to the final version of the game, the paper shows and discusses how an iterative process of testing prototypes of the game improved the learning contents, playability (enjoyment) and usability. The stakeholders who participated in the various phases of development were industry experts, scientific experts, the public administration, game-designers, experienced board-game players, marketing professionals, and end-users i.e. citizens and young people. The discussion confronts observations that were made during the process with the theory of co-design and serious gaming.

• Broad comments

Strengths:

The serious game depicted in this paper is a highly valuable contribution to the 4^th UN Sustainable Development Goal: “Qualitative education”. It is very important to raise awareness, knowledge and agency among citizens, for adopting renewable energy sources and energy saving behaviors. For this aim, it is necessary to not only know the available options, but to also understand the trade-offs that come with combining them, in real life. At an early stage of the development, the creators made the choice to focus the game on the neighborhood level, where infrastructure issues and personal behaviors meet. In a simulation game, the players can learn facts about available options and their effects, but also complex reasoning for decision-making. The paper shows how iterative tests of prototypes of the game have improved its learning content, the fun of playing (which is also key to good learning) and its usability for group discussions on energy transition.

The paper describes in detail how the 4 phases of the development were useful for improving the game, which makes a strong case for implicating various stakeholders. Part 4 of the paper, “Theoretical foundations”, reviews current concepts on learning with serious games, on co-design and on game development, with many interesting and relevant bibliographic sources.

Weaknesses:

The structure of the paper is at times confusing. The title is right to call it a case study, for its value is being an example of an iterative development of such a serious game.

The abstract and the introduction mention two “research questions” and hypotheses, but the paper is about describing and analyzing a real-life observation, with regard to current knowledge about complex environmental issues, learning with serious games and citizen participation.

While the introduction is well documented, it lacks context about the EnaQ research project that was the occasion for this serious game. What are the other research topics in this project? Has it got a broader, national or European scope that would make this experience, or the game itself valuable to other regions? As professional game designers were part of the development, was the intention to make a game that would be for sale or for use by non-profit organisations?

In parts 2 and 3, the authors have tried to make a “materials and methods” section with a general description of the game and actors, and a “results” section, with the subsequent iterations with stakeholders.

The game mechanics are not clear, this is a problem from the beginning and throughout the paper. One understands implicitly the rationale of the game: using a combination of renewable energy resources and energy saving behaviors for meeting the needs of the population for heating, transportation and power for electrical devices, while minimizing environmental effects. I suggest this is stated explicitly in the beginning of the second part, with the detailed contents of the “cards”, before presenting the actors of the conception phase and then the iterations.

The 4^th and 5^th parts could be combined into a discussion, to avoid repeating arguments about the iterative improvements on the game.

All in all, the paper should describe precisely the game itself in its subsequent stages, and then discuss the advantages of participatory development. It is mainly a matter of re-organizing the content to make it more fluid, as the paragraphs are generally well written and informative.

• Specific comments

In section 2, a conceptual figure of the game mechanics would be helpful (maybe this can be taken from the initial presentations of the rules to the panel that played the first iterations of the tests).

Figure 2: The intention and the content of this figure are not clear. The authors should provide a more straightforward example of a card and annotate the different segments/regions of the game board.

Table 2: Cite in detail all the cards of each category.

Explain in section 2 the concept of rounds and target values (see also general remarks). They only appear in line 314, and the previous paragraphs are not clear without this explanation.

Line 351: a duration of several hours makes one wonder about the attention span required from the players. The concept of a stop watch after 30 min seems to help, but it’s still a lot for learning purposes even for adults, and would be worse in a high school setting.

Also, why would only persons interested by the subject be a target for the game? Could it not be useful to update beliefs about what is possible with renewable energy and savings?

Line 464: at the end of this discussion, I am still confused about the “informant” design framework. Was it used or not here? To my knowledge (I’m not an expert on design), prototyping is building devices to “fail”, i.e. to uncover weaknesses in a concept. Was there this kind of intention, and if so, how did the coordinators of this experience organize ideation?

Last paragraph: an important aspect of acceptance of change is agency, which is not mentioned here but is a benefit from simulation games (where participants make decisions and discuss them). It would be good to cite this aspect, with regard to the initial intention of the EnaQ project.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors and editor,

The revised paper is clearly developed in many ways that has improved its quality.

The papers main strength is that it provides an insightful description of the process and result of the design of a serious board game with the aim to assist in a transition so a sustainable energy system. Especially it engages with the delicate balance between learning and playability.

Also, the account of the feedback of the co-designers has also been elaborated and is now more detailed, including an important statement about the lack of conflicts between the comments from the co-designers.

Still there is no clear account of the method for gathering of and analyzing the data (feed-back). I still think that a more elaborated (transcribed and perhaps thematized) analysis of the discussions could reveal more layers of their thoughts.

However, considering the changes in the aim of the paper it is now more focused on describing the approach of developing the game, rather than providing scientific answers on the two research questions. Hence, the paper is in line with the stated aim of the paper and my major concern from the first round of review is thus avoided. The original aim and RQ’s would have required an evaluation of different approaches or an in-depth, theory developing analysis.

I wonder if the following reorganization of the aim could make your rephrased aim a bit clearer. Not necessary, but a suggestion.

“This paper discusses the development process of the serious board game “Changing the Game – Neighbourhood”. Therefore, it describes our approach of developing a serious game with co-designers in four phases and illustrates the process using an example. Doing so the paper focus on two central challenges: 1) How to develop a serious game for the energy transition, which keeps balance between learning and playability? and 2) How can co-design contribute to the development of a serious game?”

Two minor things. First, at line 430, the sentence is a bit complicated. I suggest you delete the first four words. Second on line 434 “their worked” should probably be “after that they worked ” or “after their work”.

That said, I can now accept the paper to be published.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Editor,

Thank you for the revised manuscript and the cover letter provided by the authors.

They have taken into account all my remarks and explained thoroughly all pending questions, so I think the manuscript is fine now, congratulations for a very interesting work.