AgriLemma 2.0: A serious game for exploring dilemmas in agriculture

In AgriLemma, you are a farmer in Europe managing your own farm across 8 seasons. You grow six types of crops — potatoes, sugar beets, rapeseed, corn, wheat, and chickpeas — each requiring resources such as seeds, water, nutrients, and workers. Players must run, invest in, and improve their farm with sustainable technologies while balancing competing priorities and navigating uncertainties like weather events and pest attacks.

The objective is to maximize overall farm health, which is determined by three dimensions: environmental health (positive ecological impact), social health (worker satisfaction), and financial health (farm profitability). Players must strategize across all three dimensions simultaneously — decisions that boost profit may come at an environmental cost, and vice versa. The game makes these trade-offs tangible, encouraging reflection on what sustainable farming really requires.

------------------------------ Learning objectives:

·        Experiment with different strategies — to operationalize and adapt an approach under pressure, and to reflect on how well it held up.

·        Expose students to issues of risk management — to plan, control, and explain the reasoning behind in-game choices relating to sustainability, soil conservation practices, integrated crop management, weeding, and pest management, and to learn how to respond when conditions change.

·        Experience the complexity of decision-making — to take into account weather and policy uncertainties, sustainability pressures, economic realities, and the broader context in which farm decisions are made.

--------------------------------Practical information:

·        Format: Board game (physical/ print-and-play)

·        Players: 2-4 players (extendable to 8 by playing in teams of 2)

·        Duration: 3 hours, including onboarding and debrief

·        Level: Higher education / Stakeholder engagement

·        Language: English

--------------------------------Credits:

AgriLemma was originally designed as part of the WATERAGRI project. The second version, including a full redesign of the graphics, was developed with funding support from the TU Delft Open Science Programme course "Civic Engagement in Action: Empowering Researchers and Educators to Make an Impact".

Game design: Dr. ir. Aashna Mittal - TU Delft, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

Graphic design and illustration: Gracia Bovenberg-Murris and Michelle de Smit – TU Delft GameLab

Note on image generation: The images in the tech cards and the border of the main game board were created using AI-generated imagery. The constructed wetlands card image is also AI-generated. All other cards and box art are hand-drawn or created in Adobe Illustrator.

Note on usability: The print-and-play version of the game has been optimized for office printing.