Polar

by Alexander Kozina, Thomas Bell, Laura Hirsh, Massimo Nuzzi, and Mirlande Germain

 

Polar is a 2D action game designed in collaboration with the non-profit educational organization LEARN to teach secondary school students about the Earth’s atmosphere. Within the game, the player controls a polar bear as it attempts to scavenge for food on a continuously-shrinking territory.

 

In-between levels, interstitial newscasters discuss the current state of the Arctic’s flora and fauna, and the recent developments of a power-hungry oil corporation that is slowly encroaching on their territory. In doing so, the game demonstrates how climate change profoundly impacts all aspects of the planet’s ecology – and how this, in turn, will eventually negatively affect humans as well.