Carbonopoly

Note: Images will be added soon

Carbonopoly is a game created for Queen’s University’s CSC2058 course (no longer offered as of 2026-2027 academic year. RIP). The course featured a yearlong (September to March) group project to make an educational board game that taught the player about the United Nation’s goals on Climate Action.

The game is a monopoly-like board game with climate change, and players must work together to revert it. The idea of the game came from the alternate “prosperity” game mode of The Landlord’s Game (the “inspiration” for Monopoly. Players move around the board and purchase properties, like monopoly, but some properties are bad for the environment (such as oil drilling, coal power plant, etc.), and the rest are good for the environemnt (reforestation, wind turbines, etc.).

Carbonopoly features two meters on the game screen. On the left is the carbon meter, which is directly affected by the current owned properties, chance cards, and policies (we’ll cover those in a second). On the right is the temperature meter, which changes each round based on the carbon meter (the higher the carbon level, the more it increases). The game wins when carbon level is below the starting level, and the temperature is constant or falling for 4 rounds in a row.

Chance cards operate similarly to monopoly, but have added functionality. There are chance cards that emulate natural disasters and can temporarilly disable buildings in a part of the board. Other chance cards include “Real Estate Bubble” (Properties are 1.5x more expensive to purchase for x rounds), “Tsunami” (destroys coastal nuclear power plant, and irradiates that part of the board until repaired), and “Sandstorm” (All desert properties are disabled for x rounds).

The game features a “Mutual Fund” that houses communal money spent on policies (I swear I’m getting to it). A percentage of property rent payment is paid into the mutual fund, and players directly contribute to the mutual fund when landing on the “Carbon Tax” square.

The community chest was replaced with a “Policy” system. Policies are a way for all players to vote on game modifications. The policies we had time to implement are: Repair irradiated nuclear plant, build a functioning train system, reduce rent on eco properties by 20% for x rounds, carbon properties earn 25% more income but has higher carbon impact, Reduce temperature by 10% for x rounds. Players can enable policies by landing on the “Policy Summit” square. Policies cost money to activate, and that balance is paid by the mutual fund.