Exploring empathy with an interactive experience

For Compassion Australia, we created an app-led game to help young people empathise with those in poverty – considering the complexity of the systems which drive it, and sparking discussion of how we might help to change the world to end it.
 
We combined app-based and real-world game mechanics for greater immersion, creating ‘The Village’, where participants play as people who are all part of a single village. With different starting resources available to each player, they’re challenged to produce enough origami paper models of food, clothes, and medicine together to survive.
 
The app keeps track of each participant’s resources and education level on a leaderboard for everyone to see. The public leaderboard creates a competitive atmosphere, driving players to try to out-do each other. But regardless of strategy or hard work, some struggle to keep up due to lack of education or starting resources. And when they fall behind, often other more “successful” players take advantage to employ them for lower wages instead.
 
The gameplay encourages the emergence of surprisingly complex social and economic dynamics which build empathy about the complexity of the issue.
 
When the game is over, participants can examine the mechanisms that prevent people from getting ahead, and discuss their personal experiences with the systems that made it difficult in-game. And if they’re inspired to go further, they can get involved with Compassion’s development and aid work, to end poverty around the world for good.