Mia Dixon

BSc Interactive Media, Class of 2023

Major Project: Fossil Island – The Negative Effects of Fossil Fuel Companies through Transmedia Storytelling and Gamification

With the increase in technology and media ever evolving, learning is something that can be integrated with gamification to enhance the learning experience and provide an innovative and exciting experience. The major project aims to use transmedia storytelling and gamification methods to create a serious Alternate Reality Game (ARG) to showcase the negative impacts that fossil fuel companies have on the planet and their attempt to cover up the truth of what they’re doing by ‘greenwashing’. This project will draw on players’ previous knowledge around fossil fuel companies and provide a fictional, gamification aspect for them to immerse themselves into, and further educate themselves on the matter of greenwashing and the negative effects of using fossil fuels as a source of energy. Fossil Island was heavily inspired by the Willow Project which is an authorised plan to commence in 2027 where 23 million acres of land in Alaska will be taken over for oil digging. Burning the oil from The Willow Project would put an estimated 239 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during the project’s 30-year lifetime. It will worsen climate change and massively impact and destroy multiple habitats in Alaska along with having drastic impacts on the planet. I wanted to showcase just how detrimental projects like these are and highlight the ways in which fossil fuel companies cover up the truth.