Gamification as a Tool in Urban Planning

The main topic of this master thesis is to assess how gamification techniques could be utilized within urban planning processes as a participative tool which can increase the quality of the outcome and hopefully eliminate (or at least decrease) some of the current issues of citizens engagement. The first part represents theoretical base explaining terms and methods that are later used in the practical experiment. Besides the definition of terms, the theoretical part is searching for connections between theories related to participatory urban planning and theories and design methods related to gamification. These connections are later used for implementation gaming into planning. The theoretical base is also used for creating an evaluation system for different participatory methods, which is necessary for comparing the gaming method and the traditional one and justifying its use in the planning practice. The second part is focused on the gamification experiment itself: mostly on the Ravipeli game in Vaasan Ravilaaakso (Vaasa 2018), and also on a previous gaming experiment Karjaranta (Pori 2017) an obvious inspiration for Ravipeli. There is a brief description of the areas and tasks which supposed to be addressed during the participatory gaming sessions, gaming mechanism and sessions itself. Each game is evaluated by using the same system as mentioned above. The conclusion of the thesis is focused on general evaluation and possible vision of how gamification tools in urban planning can evolve in the future