The last two years, myself and the Games4Geo crew (Sam, Rolf, Jaz and Liz) have had an absolute blast running the Geoscience Games Night. We have been blown away by your enthusiasm to share and play geoscience games. Who would have thought we’d have managed to bring together over 300 geoscientists to play games but take a look back at last year’s Games Night – it was rammed and people were playing games on the floor.
Obviously, with the 2020 General Assembly moving online it simply is not possible to run the Games Night at such a scale. However, we are not abandoning you all together, I want to use this post to introduce to you the EGU 2020 Online Geoscience Games Night – LIVE!
Sadly, we cannot provide you a forum to share or play geoscience games at the same scale at this time. Instead we will be providing a live stream from the Games4Geo crew on the EGU YouTube channel, where for two hours we will be playing games and talking games and geoscience. We will be playing a game called Monster Flux on the Tabletopia service. We appreciate this is very much not a geoscience game but we wanted something multiplayer, readily available online, and simple enough for us to pick up quickly and maintain a coherent conversation!
Geoscience Games Night LIVE 2020 – Wednesday 6th May, 6-8pm CEST – link will also be shared on Twitter (@EuroGeosciences and @GeoSciGames)
As we play we will be talking about games and geoscience. We will discuss our own backgrounds and research, why and how we use games, and what games we really like. We’ll also be looking back at some of our favourite EGU memories and what we are missing about the being all together in Vienna, and well as our highlights of the virtual meeting so far.
We would really like you to get involved. Play some games along side us, either by also playing Monster Flux or choosing another game to play with friends and colleagues. Join is with the chat on the YouTube stream, tell us what you’re playing and what your favourite games are and why. But most of all, let’s talk geoscience!
If you are all keen on the online Geoscience Games Night, and we manage to get all the tech working fine, we will look to make the stream something more regular with guests on sharing their games and research. If you are interested in geoscience and games, we have set up a Discord server – to get involved please email seriousgeogames@hull.ac.uk for a link.
We are looking forward to talking games and geoscience with you!
Due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, EGU has made the decision to cancel this year’s physical General Assembly in Vienna and instead offer a partial alternative meeting online, called #shareEGU20. Over the next few weeks in the run up to #shareEGU20, which will be held from the 4 – 8 May 2020, we will be posting regular updates and information about how to get involved, what EGU can offer during this week and how to find each other. We know that there will be many, many questions that people have, and we are learning how to do this right along with you, so please send us your questions over social media or by emailing egu2020@copernicus.org or info@egu.eu. We’re looking forward to sharing EGU with you, online!