Gaming for Good: Serious Games and environmental education in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta

Partners for Water recently supported the development of a Serious Game in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, a region under severe water pressure. Led by Deltares, The Water Agency, and Can Tho University, the project used interactive gaming to help farmers, students, and policymakers understand the real-life consequences of groundwater use. The game has since evolved into an educational and policy tool across Vietnam.

In the fertile plains of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, where rice paddies stretch to the horizon and millions depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, an environmental crisis is unfolding beneath the surface. Groundwater depletion, saltwater intrusion, and land subsidence threaten the very foundation of the region’s agricultural economy.

To address the problems, in 2018 the Vietnamese government implemented new national legislation prohibiting all groundwater extraction, even for domestic use, to maximize aquifer protection in vulnerable areas.

“But you can’t prohibit something essential to farmers like groundwater and not come up with an alternative” explains Niels Mulder, a hydrogeologist specialising in groundwater and subsurface systems at Deltares.

Rather than relying on conventional approaches to environmental education and awareness, this sparked a groundbreaking collaboration between the Dutch research institute Deltares, The Water Agency, and Can Tho University. Together they developed an innovative solution: a serious game that transforms complex environmental science into engaging, hands-on learning experiences.

From research to reality

The project originated in an unconventional request from the RVO (Netherlands Enterprise Agency) via local Vietnamese partners who recognized that traditional policy communication wasn’t working. A game could provide an easy, accessible way to invite farmers to a session or meeting, and give them insight into the problem.

“We brought board games with us to a cafe and played them for a few hours. We were particularly inspired by ‘Terraforming Mars’, a game about making Mars habitable”. The team deliberately avoided digital solutions, despite their potential for precise calculations. “We wanted people to sit at a table together, in order to get a dialogue,” explains Trang Dinh. He facilitated the sessions at Can Tho University and is the country coordinator at Deltares for the Mekong region.

The physical board game format enables interpersonal dynamics that digital alternatives cannot replicate. For instance, player 1 can say to player 2, “you are now going to extract a lot of groundwater which has consequences for me”. They then find out that the only way to ‘win’ the game is by collaborating, explains Marta Faneca from Deltares. She played an important role in conceptualizing how gaming could bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and practical understanding.

It was also clear from the beginning that instead of providing a groundwater model, the game should give insights into the economic differences between, for instance, growing bananas or nuts. Initially the earnings will be higher, but then the game will show the enormous amounts of water needed. Where will this water come from? It needs to be stored. Can you store it yourself, or should neighbouring farmers be involved?

Everyone was excited. Trang explains: “even after the game was finished, people carried on talking. This outcome exceeded the team’s initial expectations and demonstrated the game’s effectiveness in generating motivation for sustainable practices.”

Policy implementation

The educational approach is designed to empower choice rather than prescribe specific solutions. So the game presents broad categories of interventions – water efficiency improvements, surface storage solutions, and managed aquifer recharge systems – while allowing players to explore their applicability to different situations.

The game’s development involved extensive testing with three distinct audiences, each bringing different perspectives and learning needs.

University students, particularly those without water resources backgrounds, approached the game with curiosity but a limited understanding of groundwater consequences. The game provided these students with their first tangible experience of how individual decisions create collective environmental problems. They gave the developers an open-minded insight into the use of the game.

Another audience, government officers, brought extensive technical knowledge but played with extreme caution. Trang: “They already have a lot of knowledge about the groundwater problem, and they play the game very carefully from the beginning. They almost never make mistakes”.

This observation of these three distinct audiences led to crucial insights about policy implementation and how different groups engage with environmental challenges.

Expanding impact

The game’s evolution from initial testing at Can Tho University in November 2023 to featuring at Hanoi’s UN Youth Festival in August 2025 demonstrates both its educational effectiveness and its scalability. Over three hour-long sessions, young participants from diverse backgrounds played the game, creating an inclusive environment that transcended language barriers.

Participants rated the experience an impressive 4.8 out of 5, with many commenting that it was “harder than expected” because it required balancing profit with sustainability. This difficulty was not a design flaw but a feature: it accurately reflected the real-world challenges faced by farmers and policymakers in managing competing economic and environmental priorities.

The development team discovered that successful implementation required constant adaptation to local contexts. The solution was to empower facilitators to modify game parameters in real time. Eight professional games are now circulating among universities, provincial departments, and communities, supplemented by locally produced versions using printed materials and Lego pieces. Another advantage is that no expensive technology is needed and the games can easily be adapted to local languages and contexts.

Learning by playing

“The project is finished. But that does not mean the game is over,” explains Niels Mulder. He feels it would be helpful to integrate this type of ‘learning by playing’ into higher education because it makes complex environmental systems tangible. Vietnam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment sees the potential for integrating the game into policy consultation processes for new water resource regulations.

The Water Agency and Deltares are scaling up these efforts, developing training for new facilitators, adapting the game for different regions, and creating digital versions in order to reach broader audiences. However, they recognize that the physical board game format offers irreplaceable benefits: face-to-face interaction, collaborative problem-solving, and the tangible nature of gameplay that digital simulations cannot replicate.

Trang’s firsthand observations reveal how games can transform traditionally difficult conversations into engaging collaborative experiences. The game successfully introduced both familiar and novel water management technologies. “Drip irrigation is popular with farmers,” Trang noticed, “and managed groundwater recharge is new to them. Explanations about how alternative techniques can help save water were very welcome.”

Turning Insight into Impact

Investing in Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), taking water from channels or rivers, and purifying it to appropriate standards is becoming more attractive in the long term. But this approach requires infrastructure investment and technical expertise. The process is more labour-intensive than simply drilling deeper wells and needs proper planning as it’s not an overnight solution. The goal is for everyone to benefit: both individual farmers and the broader community.

Government incentives can encourage farmers to adopt sustainable practices and offer solutions to reduce groundwater dependency. Players often ask for more information after playing, indicating genuine interest, and the game successfully raises awareness about how individual actions affect the broader delta ecosystem.

Most importantly, The Rethinking Groundwater Use Serious Game demonstrates that learning about environmental challenges need not be abstract or disengaging. It can be immediate, collaborative, and even fun, creating memorable experiences while still conveying crucial scientific concepts and fostering the systemic thinking needed for sustainable futures. As Marta Faneca concludes: “maximizing profit alone leads to a loss for everyone, not only regarding water, but also the environment and quality of life”.