Federico is a lecturer and researcher at the Wageningen University Farming Systems Ecology group. He is the game expert of the CiFoS research team, and coordinator of the WUR Games Hub that connects multiple researchers that use games to bridge science and society. Federico’s PhD project was on the co-design and application of serious games for the sustainability transition of farming and food systems; his current research and education focus is on games design and play and participatory research methods to explore futures farming and food systems. Via Games at TABLE, he aim to foster an international community connecting game researchers and designers across the globe, encompassing social sciences, natural sciences, and design. These partnerships may serve to develop effective strategy games and engage players with agency: decision makers who play and take action to transform systems.

Photos of people playing games at Wageningen. Images courtesy of Federico Andreotti.
Game
Gaia Explorers: A Serious Game for Playing with Planetary Boundaries in a Post-growth World
Gaia Explorers is a collaborative serious board game for 4 to 8 players, designed for a 30-minute session by Federico Andreotti and illustrated by Iván McGill. Players explore future scenarios while navigating the challenges of living within planetary boundaries. Inspired by Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and Post- Growth principles, the game challenges players to balance food production, biodiversity conservation, and emissions reduction on a newly discovered planet. The game’s mechanics draw on the EAT-Lancet guidelines and Planetary Boundaries framework to model sustainability dynamics (Richardson et al. 2023). Through individual and collective strategies, participants tackle key issues such as sustainable food production and consumption, greenhouse gas reduction, land use, and biodiversity conservation.
Read
Provided by Frederico Andreotti for his Essay on Games on TABLE, features images from WUR Games Hub, sent 1 May 2025
Essay
Games at TABLE: A new platform for food system serious games
Games at TABLE will soon be launched as the first food-systems-focused serious games library to encourage future project collaborations and support food system education, research, and broader transformation. Serious game expert Federico Andreotti provides an overview of serious games around farming and food systems, with three examples of existing serious games designed by students at Wageningen University.Federico is a lecturer and researcher at Wageningen University. He is the game expert of the CiFoS research team, and coordinator of the WUR Games Hub that connects multiple researchers that use games to bridge science and society. Federico’s PhD project was on the co-design and application of serious games for the sustainability transition of farming and food systems; his current research and education focus is on games design and play and participatory research methods to explore futures farming and food systems. Via “Games at TABLE” he aims to foster an international community connecting game researchers and designers across the globe, encompassing social sciences, natural sciences, and design. These partnerships may serve to develop effective strategy games and engage players with agency: decision makers who play and take action to transform systems.https://www.doi.org/10.56661/d1243efe
Read