Digital Gaming Programme test area 9 Dec 2021

  • Planning
    30 Nov
  • Planning
    31 Jan
  • Developing
    30 Jun
  • Reviewing
    31 Aug
  • Planning
    31 Oct
  • Developing
    31 Dec
Development Stage Summary: 

The Gaming Programme is currently in the initial planning stage are we are aiming to commence activities with city partners between March - July 2022 (especially during the end of school term period from May-July).

All technical and other requirements for the Gaming Programme will be provided by Oppla. This includes:

  • Providing schools and individual participants with licensed copies of the Minecraft game
  • Setting up and creating the 3D world(s) for each city, using data from Open Street Map
  • Designing and facilitating the online events and workshops with participants
  • Providing schools with classroom activities and materials to help prepare for the gaming events
  • Providing a 'helpdesk' service for city partners and participating schools throughout the process

Each city partner has 5000€ allocated in their budget to support the gaming programme and help provide schools with the necessary IT equipment (computers and/or tablet devices).

We'll be adding a Gaming Programme Information Pack here soon in 2022, providing information on how city partners can get started. Until then, the first steps are summarised below.

Instructions for Stakeholders: 

Our current priority is to identify which locations/areas our cities would like to include in the gaming programme; the schools or other young groups that city partners would like to involve; and the best time for the activities to take place.

Follow these steps to get started...

  1. Visit www.openstreetmap.org and find the location that would like us to create in Minecraft for your city's virtual world. The area can be up to 4-5km square kilometers, but we recommend a much smaller area for practical purposes. A small neighbourhood, street or public park would be ideal in terms of size.
  2. Collect some reference photographs of your chosen location. You might aleready have some photos on your computer, or can find some using Google Images or Google Street View. We will use these images when recreating some of the features of your location in Minecraft, so that your 3D world is more recognisable to users.
  3. Think about who you want to involve in the gaming programme? Schools are an ideal target audience and the gaming programme would make a great end-of-term activity (a time when teachers are often looking for interesting things to do). 
  4. Also think about what you want participants to do? For example: do you want them to use imagination in transforming an urban area into a 'green oasis'; do you want them to focus on a particular function for your location (recreation, walking and cycling, flood prevention, air quality, cooling, urban farming, etc); perhaps you want their views on where a particular NBS should be located, or which parts of a neighbourhood they feel need the most development, or enjoy spending time in.
  5. Create a Microsoft account (if you don't already have one), which is needed for us to provide you with a copy of Minecraft... because you need to become familiar with it too! ;)

Once you have some notes on the above (or if you have any questions), contact paul@oppla.eu or leave a coment below and the Oppla team will be in touch to start planning the Gaming Programme in your city.