Can a new version of the iconic board game Catan make the conversation about climate change more interesting? – Grist

The center of attention

On a warm June evening in Seattle, four climate journalists walk into a bar. I’m one of them, a cardboard box—the reason for our meeting—under my arm. Inside is a newly released atmospheric twist on the classic board game Catan: New Energies.

We’re all longtime fans of the cult favorite it’s based on, and we’re excited about this new take on Catan, where players balance renewable energy and fossil fuels on a fictional island. But our real mission is to find out if a clean energy board game can actually be fun — and if it can get more people talking about climate change, which scientists and human rights organizations say is a precursor to climate action. We’re ordering our pints, cracking open our plastic-free packaging, and getting to play.

The inside of a board game box showing decks of cards and other items wrapped in paper

Unboxing the New Energies game. The game components are wrapped in paper, not plastic. Grist / Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

The original game that New Energies is based on was released in 1995 as Settlers of Catan. It has sold over 40 million copies worldwide and is available in over 40 languages. In 2015, the company dropped the “settler” from the name, but the game still faces criticism for perpetuating a narrative of resource extraction and colonialism.

Designed for 3-4 players, it features an innovative hexagonal map of colored tiles, each representing a different type of land that can give the player a corresponding resource. During their turns, players can trade and barter resources to try to obtain what they need to build cities and roads. Over the course of a few hours of play, these negotiations can become lively, even heated—probably the only modern context in which many of us have argued over sheep.

Released on June 14, New Energies is the latest standalone expansion to the expansive Catan universe. It was inspired by the fan-made expansion Oil Springs, which officially released in 2011 and added fossil fuel mechanics to the base game.

Benjamin Teuber, son of original designer Klaus Teuber, said it was initially difficult to squeeze realistic energy and pollution dynamics into a relatively short game. To make sure they got it right, the family consulted with one of Oil Springs’ original designers, sustainability researcher Erik Assadourian.

“As my dad used to say, it has to be fun, otherwise we don’t get the best message,” Teuber said. “But we have to acknowledge and respect the fact that we have a very complex topic like climate change boiled down to something playable.” After more than a decade of making games together, New Energies was the family’s last collaboration before Klaus passed away in 2023.

Picture of a board game card with green and black energy tokens

“Local carbon footprint” scorecards, where each player compares fossil fuels to clean energy, are a novel element of New Energies. Grist / Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

The game has its companions on the climate shelves: titles like Daybreak, CO2: Second Chance, and Tipping Point challenge players to grapple with the complex effects of anthropogenic warming of the planet and overcome them through sheer ecological ingenuity.

“It’s just more evidence that people have climate change at the forefront of their minds right now,” said Dargan Frierson, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington who directs Earth Games, a group that designs climate games on campus. While people are often hesitant to talk about climate change — a 2022 report found that 67 percent of Americans “rarely” or “never” talk about it with friends and family — they really want to do it, he said. “There’s a need for ways to think about it, to deal with it, in a fun way.”

In 2022, the Environmental Game Design Playbook was released to help developers meet that need. Daniel Fernández Galeote, a game researcher and co-author of the playbook, says games can offer interactive climate education. “It’s experimenting with them in a safe environment and having a kind of social contract with other people to discuss and reflect together,” he said. “Games can be a really good conversation starter.”

These games, and the conversations they spark, can also inspire action. A 2017 paper found that playing the Catan Oil Springs expansion moved players toward more sustainable actions. Social psychologists call this bridging the “intention-behavior” gap—moving people from beliefs or goals to actually changing their behavior.

Of course, for a game to generate discussion, people first have to try it out. For casual gamers, setting up New Energies can be a bit overwhelming. All told, there are about a dozen new components, and even for my group of Catan-savvy friends, getting up and running was a steep learning curve. Fortunately, our small crew had a focused “rules guy”—a key role for any successful game night.

Aerial view of the Catan New Energies board laid out on a table

View of the New Energies board and all its elements at the end of the game. Grist / Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

As our rules guy instructs, each turn begins with a blind pull of an “event token” from a bag, which can fill up counters on the board to trigger events like air pollution, floods, and climate conferences. In a rhythm familiar to old-time Catan hats, we roll dice, collect resources, and build while juggling new elements like energy and science.

The game starts with a world set in polluting industries; it is faster and cheaper for players to build fossil fuels than renewables. But the more renewable energy players build, the greater the chances of “green events” and less pollution.

In keeping with Teuber’s belief that the planet’s warming should be an issue beyond politics, the game tries to stay neutral and avoids the words “climate change.” Instead, Kelli Schmitz, director of brand development at Catan Studio, said the game aims to normalize renewable technologies. “It removes the controversy,” she said.

As in the original Catan, players still win by being the first to reach 10 victory points, whether through fossil fuels or green energy. “It’s important to allow people to win the game by playing fossil fuels, because that’s also something that happens in the real world,” Teuber said. But it’s also possible for the game to end prematurely at maximum pollution or when climate event tokens run out. In those scenarios, the player with the lowest carbon footprint is the default winner.

“The person who invested the most in green energy was considered by us to be the natural leader,” Teuber said.

Like most people, I find the topic of climate change anxiety-inducing and try to avoid it outside of work. But as we play, the group starts joking about the same heartbreaking topics that are common in our office. We giggle as we navigate the “environmental inspector” (the new name for the resource-locking thief from the original game), revel in the clean energy spoils of government funding, and cheer the start of every climate conference.

In the weeks since the official launch, I’ve visited the island of Catan and its “new energies” many times. Each time, I’ve had to convince a group to travel with me—trust in the promise of fun. And each time, we chat to achieve victory in the field of renewable energy.

— Sachi Kitajima Mulkey

More exposure

A parting shot

This isn’t the first time Grist has tested a clean energy board game. In 2020, then-Grist employee Nathanael Johnson gathered a group of climate experts to play a new cooperative board game called Energetic, developed by the nonprofit City Atlas. In the game, shown below, players take on different roles and work together to build a clean energy source that will power New York State by 2035.