The Adaptation Game: turning climate worry into local action

Fires in Northland are sending smoke your way. Even inside, it’s hard to breathe, and it's affecting your health. More and more people want to be ready for situations like this, but aren’t sure where to start.

The Adaptation Game (TAG) offers a practical, hands-on way to help communities explore real scenarios and figure out what they’d do, together.

Bringing the game to Tāmaki Makaurau

Developed in Australia and used by councils to support communities facing climate risks, TAG has now been brought to Tāmaki Makaurau with support from Auckland Council and community partners.

Using local maps and overlays, the game guides players through evolving climate conditions like flooding, heatwaves and wildfire. Participants locate their own homes and work through challenges, decisions and trade-offs, and long-term strategies that can strengthen their ability to adapt as their environment changes.

In a recent Kaipātiki pilot, more than 50 people took part across six workshops, exploring how their community might respond to climate impacts.

TAG isn’t about getting the “right” answer. It’s about getting people talking, sharing perspectives, and building confidence in what to do next.

Kaipātiki Local Board chair Danielle Grant recently joined one of the sessions.

“I got to hear the perspective of other players and to verbalise my own thoughts, and I could see where my decisions could lead.”

The pilot, run by NeuroSpot facilitators Cole Armstrong and Baruk Jacob, showed a shift in how people felt after the session.

After playing, people felt significantly more confident in their ability to respond to climate impacts. Their understanding of local climate risks more than doubled. And the number of people who felt motivated to take action jumped from just 16 percent to 61 percent. Armstrong noted that:

"We often think knowing about a problem is enough, but it is not. You have to create a way for people to move from thinking about it to actually doing something.”

The power of local knowledge

Jacob says the game also unlocks something just as important: local knowledge.

“No one knows a community better than the people who live there, but those insights are often missing from planning. The most likely person to help you in an emergency is your neighbour, so those connections matter.”

Players bring their own experiences into the game, sharing what has happened before and how they responded. Those conversations help build a clearer picture of what communities need, from trusted networks to practical resources, when disruption hits.

For Auckland Council, TAG is part of a broader effort to support communities to prepare for climate impacts in ways that feel relevant, practical and empowering.

What’s next

Following the success of the Kaipātiki pilot, work is now underway to develop additional versions of the game that reflect different parts of Tāmaki Makaurau.

These will be available to borrow by the end of the year, giving communities a simple way to come together, share local knowledge, and explore the climate risks and responses that matter most in their own neighbourhoods.

While climate change can feel overwhelming, taking action does not have to be. Sometimes, it starts with a fun game played around a community table.

Get involved

Keen to be involved in setting up the game in your local community?

Email Myriam Marcon: myriam.marcon@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz