Cory is the founder of Climate Replay. He took a school trip one day and got inspired to a point it would shape his professional life. He would go on and use his first programming class to mod Minecraft and capture his school trip inspirations. Little did he know that his mod, Tropicraft, would become more and more popular. Cory met more modders who eventually joined Mojang, and in turn, years later, Cory joined as a Designer.
Throughout his journey, Cory always tried to mix his connections and skills to make the world a better place. It wasn’t until after he moved to Sweden that he had an “awakening” on climate issues. He had this realization of how big the problems we face really are. Since then, he has been looking for ways to raise awareness and engage others in the fight against the climate crisis. Climate Replay is its latest materialization. Let’s dig deeper.
The gaming community is super passionate and wants to make a positive impact on the world, but a lot of the time they simply don’t know how.
Climate Replay started with the organization of cool events like “Love Tropics” and raising money for charity. Completing community-run projects on a voluntary basis inspired Cory and got him thinking. During the pandemic winter 2020-21 he had some time to reflect on the problems more and how one individual could create systemic change(s). Cory concluded that building a community is probably the best way. “The gaming community is super passionate and wants to make a positive impact on the world, but a lot of the time they simply don’t know how”.
Using video games in a fun, light-hearted video series to explain climate change is one of Climate Replay’s initiatives. They want to take the idea of charity live stream events to the next level to make them more game-oriented, the idea of game jams and make them more climate oriented. They like to think about the planet in a positive, problem-solving mode, and want to write problem statements and find out if they can solve them.
“Climate Replay wants to give a voice to those affected and who historically have not been able to have their voices heard.“
Cory started to activate his network and ask friends what they thought about the ideas around Climate Replay. Soon enough, new and older friends joined the fray: Frances, Anna, Ami, Tom, Laura, Kayla, Alice, Mariana, Henrik, Agnes, Chi…
Take the time to meet the entire team behind Climate Replay at their website.
The long-term vision for Climate Replay is still in the works. They want to try out a lot of different ideas and see what works best and what resonates most with people. First and foremost, they want to raise awareness of the many different issues that contribute to the global crisis we are facing and then create actionable ways for people to contribute to the solutions to those problems.
“We want to use our platform to amplify the voices of those most affected by climate issues and the related intersectional issues.”
At Climate Replay, they are all volunteers and do that on top of their day job. It is a marathon, not a sprint, they understand it will spread and evolve, grassroots style. Spreading awareness is great and super important but Climate Replay doesn’t want to stop there: “We want to use our platform to amplify the voices of those most affected by climate issues and the related intersectional issues.”
Climate Replay has an interesting angle where they want to entertain, to inform, and to activate people: “It’s up to us as individuals and as a community to stand up and say “actually, we see a better future for the world” and then go out and help make it happen using our common unifying joy – video games – to fight the climate crisis and make the world a better place.”
Climate Replay is organizing its first game jam and is looking for sponsors and partners from studios, artists, and developers around the world. Click here to get in touch and help out.
Join their discord server and be on the lookout for their Twitch channel soon to help raise awareness and have fun as well!