Prasad Sandbhor
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity
Biodiversity education through games
Biography
I am a serious game designer, researcher and educator specialising in environmental games, with an interdisciplinary practice informed by user-centred design and strategic management. During my PhD, I developed the 'Thinking Through' framework for designing contextual role-playing games that support understanding of climate actions. I am a co-founder of the 'Play in Nature' initiative, which creates playful experiences that connect people with nature. I co-lead ‘Play for the Planet Network’ that connects game designers, researchers, and educators to tackle planetary crises through play. At LCAB, I am exploring how games can convey the concept of ‘good Anthropocene’ in biodiversity education.
Research
In recent years, environment-themed games have become increasingly popular, attracting both designers and players across media platforms and formats. Such games hold significant potential to foster ecological awareness, encouraging players to engage with nature, observe their surroundings, and ultimately adopt more pro-environmental actions. However, many of these games are developed without input from ecologists or subject matter experts, risking miscommunication of core environmental concepts. My research addresses that gap. It begins with an analysis of existing environmental games depicting biodiversity and the Anthropocene, employing discourse analysis to examine how these concepts are conveyed, alongside play sessions to assess audience takeaways. It also involves consulting with ecologists to identify the topics requiring accurate representation to inform the development of a new game designed to communicate the concept of ‘good Anthropocene’ effectively and responsibly.
Publication Highlights
Sandbhor, P., Hook, J., & Dunlop, L. (2026). Climate Companions: Designing role-playing games that help in thinking through climate actions. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Issue CHI PLAY 2026.
Dunlop, L., Joucoski, E., & Sandbhor, P. (2025). Learning through play? What board games reveal and conceal about climate change. Environmental Education Research, 1–21.
Sandbhor, P. & Hook, J. (2024). Climate Club: A Group-based Game to Support Sensemaking of Climate Actions. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
(FDG '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 32, 1–12.
Sandbhor, P., Bangal, P., Aggarwal, D., & Khot, R.A. (2021). Life on Wings: Relating to a Bird's Life in a City through a Board Game. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CHI PLAY, Article 232 (September 2021), 28 pages.
Sandbhor, P. & Bangal, P. (2018). Game System based on Mixed-species Bird Flocks: A Science Outreach Approach. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY '18 Extended Abstracts). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 595–601.