Developing an Ecology-Integrated Gaming Tool for Collaborative Landscape Design

Long-term success in landscape planning and ecosystem restoration relies on continuous engagement, exploring alternatives, and collaborative creation and design to develop sustainable spaces. However, stakeholders often struggle to contribute effectively due to limited ecological knowledge and planning experience, making it difficult to select strategies and anticipate outcomes. Leveraging video game engine technologies that integrate environmental data, models, planning rules, and interactive 3D visualizations, this study introduces an ecology-integrated gaming tool. The tool automates the generation of landscape elements, including local vegetation communities, and allows users to explore and combine land-use and restoration strategies for given areas. This paper outlines the tool’s development workflow, including modeling and visualizing current landscapes, developing Procedural Content Generation (PCG) graphs for automated generation, and integrating generated content with Graphical User Interface for interactive co-design. It concludes by highlighting the tool’s potential to enhance collaborative landscape design and participatory restoration while discussing future prospects.