25/08/2005 - Gamers all
over Europe can now play a pc game and learn
about the environment at the same time. The
European Environment Agency in Copenhagen
has launched the Honoloko pc game in 26 languages.
The game is available on the internet and
free to use.
Honoloko is designed as a board game. While
moving around on an island, the player is
continuously asked questions concerning his
or her environmental behaviour. Points are
awarded depending on the choices made by the
player. The game is targeted at the age range
8 to 12. The objective is to raise awareness
and promote a change in behaviour. Earlier
this year the EEA launched a multilingual
Kids' Zone with environmental information
on its website.
"In addition to hosting the game ourselves,
we are also offering it to environmental bodies
and organisations who would like to integrate
it as a part of their website", says
EEA Executive Director Professor Jacqueline
McGlade. "In the long-term, we hope that
Honoloko will inspire private games developers
to integrate environmental issues into their
commercial pc-games".
The Honoloko game is available in the official
EU languages plus Bulgarian, Icelandic, Norwegian,
Romanian, Russian and Turkish. It was developed
jointly by the World Health Organization Regional
Office for Europe and the European Environment
Agency.
The idea of both the game and Kids-Zone on
the website is to demonstrate that there are
relations between environment and health,
especially for children. It also shows how
seemingly small, individual behavioural changes
can have a major impact at European level.
The central feature of Kids' Zone is the
Eco-Agent. The visitor is invited to become
an Eco-Agent. They are then sent out on missions
within the areas: chemicals, transport, water,
air and climate change. The visitor starts
out as an agent-trainee and must gather knowledge
and pass tests to finally become a fully fledged
Eco-Agent. They can then compare themselves
with other agents. The agent can pass tests
to raise his/her score - as compared to the
other Eco-Agents.
Visit Honoloko at http://www.honoloko.com
and Kids' Zone of the EEA website at: http://ecoagents.eea.eu.int.
About the EEA
The European Environment Agency is the leading
public body in Europe dedicated to providing
sound, independent information on the environment
to policy-makers and the public. Operational
in Copenhagen since 1994, the EEA is the hub
of the European environment information and
observation network (Eionet), a network of
around 300 bodies across Europe through which
it collects and disseminates environment-related
data and information. An EU body, the Agency
is open to all nations that share its objectives.
It currently has 31 member countries: the
25 EU Member States, three EU candidate countries
– Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey – and Iceland,
Liechtenstein and Norway.A membership agreement
has been initialled with Switzerland. The
West Balkan states – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
and Serbia and Montenegro – have applied for
membership of the Agency.
