The town of Guelph, ON, Canada uses GuelphQuest Online to educate residents about city planning

The town of Guelph, ON, Canada is growing fast and is facing some city planning challenges in the future in dealing with the population growth.

The town has turned towards games to educate its residents of policy choices dealing with city planning and the consequences of those choices. They've commissioned a Flash-based game called GuelphQuest Online.

The game asks players to plan the next 35 years of the town's growth. The game asks the players to prioritize the choices the town has to grow with a series of questions and then presents the player with how the future would turn out given their choices in a time-lapse animation of the city map as well as how things like commute time and air quality would be effected.

In my practise game I managed to reduce the eco-footprint of the city by 30%, but also increased commute time by 20%.