Eco-gaming: five environment-focused videogames
In any form of entertainment, having a preachy rhetoric can destroy the fun as swiftly as Nineties consoles destroyed the sustainability of the gaming sector, but five games have managed to put the message across without a hint of sermonising. All over the world, gamers are uniting against eco-baddies through their game environments – and having fun while they do. If Ovo Energy was a games developer, these are the kind of video games it would produce. Okabu – Teaser Trailer
Okabu There are gamers and there are game players. Okabu was developed for game players – families and children who are happy to while away an hour on gameplay but not to camp out beside their consoles for an entire, sleepless holiday. Its developers were inspired by a documentary about Botswana’s Okavango Delta, and have crafted a colourful world of eco-loving cloudwhales who must solve puzzles in order to destroy the toxic waste-producing rival Doza clan.
Flower If games had human subcultures, Flower would be a hippy poet, dragging its fingers through the daisies while telling esoteric tales of wonder. The game takes you into the dreams of a blossom, letting you hover on top of a breeze composing musical notes with passing petals. Like a lucid dreamer, you have the power to influence what you see by gathering petals and coaxing them along the wind and, as you do, the game coaxes you into multisensory euphoria. In short, Sony’s Flower is akin to a haiku with the implicit epiphany that man and nature can coexist. Groovy, man.
Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssee, Eco-Fighters Abe was a klutzy green underdog who worked at a pollution-belching corporation at the height of the Nineties gaming boom. Unlike most games of the time, the Oddworld franchise was forward-thinking enough to retain its relevance years into the future. Even today, gamers are venturing into the odd world of Oddworld. Abe ventures out of his comfort zone as a janitor to rescue his fellow Mudokons, escape his boss’s species-killing habits, and become one with Mother Nature. Through puzzles, storytelling, and sneaking, Eco-Fighters lets gamers wreak havoc on corporate polluters–and have a laugh while they do.
Energy City Energy City is a world simulation game that delves deep beneath the surface of its message, forcing its players to think consciously about the world around them. Players are tipped off about sophisticated elements of the eco-wars from a scientific, evidence-based angle. If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, you’ve probably never played Sim City. This is a genre that thrives on complexity and authenticity, especially when the citizens of your city are as easily satisfied as Gordon Ramsay. Energy City crowns you mayor and gives you freedom to power your city with as much budget-friendly coal as you wish (at a price). To earn your citizens’ cooperation, you must lay out bike paths, consider clean energy alternatives, and develop biofuel power plants that sustain your city 20 years into the future, even when immediate consequences aren’t apparent.
Fate of the World T.S. Elliott may have said that the world would end ‘not with a bang but a whisper’, but Fate of the World disagrees. The global simulator plunges you into the midst of a global crisis that is far from silent: tsunamis, fires, flooded continents, and civil war have all been clamped together into a single, epic present, and you’re tasked with redemption. The game, developed according to scientific research of an Oxford professor, has won acclaim as a courageous, award winning foray into serious, yet world-class, entertainment.
Commissioned by Ovo Energy – the cheaper, greener and simpler energy supplier
Using a section from a plastic milk carton, we covered the pouring spout hole. And glued pieces of broken twigs to the ‘roof’ of the juice carton to make an organic natural looking roof for the Birdhouse. Carefully cutting the string around the bird’s doorway, and gluing back the string inside to make a smooth entrance, and adding a lolly stick below finishes the juice carton Birdhouse off quite nicely! All we need now is one of 
There is nothing as wonderful as having a lunch without the kids... that sounds very tragic, but honestly, being invited out to lunch when the boys are at school is rarely sniffed at, so I was delighted to be able to check out the newly revamped 
I spent many years working in Chiswick #BC (before children) and we struggled to find anywhere GOOD to go for lunch and I so wish the Crown and Anchor had been this beautiful back then! With an excellent decor and delightful staff, the choice on the menu is also fabulous… I went for a welsh rarebit, and the gnocci – mmm mmmmm.
And I know my boys would love hanging out there on a Sunday afternoon, it’s so cosy, and the kids’ menu is basically selected dishes at half price.
Ingredients for 4 people:
