A year in review: The Stop Disasters game travels around the world
2025 marked a year of exceptional growth for the Stop Disasters game. The game was viewed over 2 million times!
This resource teaches core DRR concepts in an accessible and engaging way – all in a free, online game! Faced with trade-offs and decisions within the constraints of budget and time, players learn to stop one of five hazards – tsunami, earthquake, flood, wildfire, hurricane – from becoming a disaster…
Its potential for education can be seen in how the game has travelled around the world, from Japan to Barbados, in conferences and classrooms.
Hear testimonies from participants at the Global Platform for DRR, June 2025.
Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2-6 June
The Stop Disasters game was centre-stage at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) very own Global Platform 2025, hosted in Geneva, Switzerland. The booth at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP) was set up with the game ready to watch on larger screens, fostering group decisions around choices being made by the player at the helm.
With over 3,600 attendees, the game’s presence at the GP made a splash. Players were attracted across industries and age groups to test their unique strategy - truly demonstrating the game's versatility.
“I think it can be used at different levels – not only with students… I think it can be used also with local councils, governments as well.”
– Mónica Rivas Casado, Reader in Environmental Systems Engineering, Cranfield University
World Expo, Japan, 5-12 October
With over 75,000 views across one week, the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, between the 5th and 12th October 2025, showed the engaging potential of the Stop Disasters game. Children crowded around the interactive screens in the exhibition to play the game by touchscreen, which further enabled discussion and collective decision-making among the gathering exhibit-goers.
The exhibition attracted great interest from the public, both young and older visitors, who also asked many questions about our organization and activities.
The Japanese version of the game was launched for the exhibition, making it one of the latest of the 13 languages now available! This marked an important advance in the game’s impact, given Japan’s high exposure to hazards - yet Stop Disasters now acts as a new tool in the country’s hazard education toolkit.
“What’s great about it is that you learn about the steps that are needed to plan well and to evacuate. As an urban planner, it's really great to see non-urban planners or people who are not working in the built environment learning more about it .”
– Ms. Chesca Delingon, Urban planner, Philippines
Celebrating the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, 13 October 2025
On the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR), UNDRR hosted a major event in Brussels that engaged 200 cities and regions in playing the game. City leaders from across Europe, ranging from mayors to municipal administrators, participated in an interactive quiz based on the game. The event highlighted the role of innovative tools in disaster awareness, and the panel concluded by encouraging cities to integrate the game into their youth engagement activities to help strengthen understanding of disaster risk and resilience among younger generations. Country representatives in Croatia and Romania also organized their own events celebrating IDDRR by introducing their own language versions of the game in schools.
Cascais, 1 November 2025
2025 marked to 270th anniversary of the Lisbon Earthquake and Tsunami. This catastrophic event was commemorated in Cascais, Portugal, on the 1st of November. As a part of the event, the municipality of Cascais was awarded the status of being Tsunami Ready, recognising the work done in the area to educate and implement tsunami disaster risk reduction measures.
Stop Disasters formed a part of these efforts, having been introduced in local schools. Furthermore, the game was presented to attendees of the event – in both Portuguese and English – testing their strategy in the tsunami scenario, and celebrating wins with the tsunami scenario certificate! On the day of the commemoration, the tsunami scenario was played over 300 times!
Riyadh, 23-25 November 2025
The 4th Risk, Emergency, and Business Continuity Management Conference, held in Riyadh in November 2025, brought together global leaders, experts, and stakeholders to explore strategies for enhancing business continuity and supply chain resilience in the face of complex disruptions, including geopolitical tensions, climate change, economic instability, and global crises.
The conference featured workshops, dialogue sessions, and an exhibition highlighting innovative tools and methodologies for preparedness. Notably, interactive solutions such as the “Stop Disaster Game” attracted significant attention, showcasing the potential of gamified approaches to strengthen training, test organizational readiness, and support effective decision-making in risk and crisis management.
World Tsunami Awareness Day, New York, 5 November
In New York, an event was held to mark World Tsunami Awareness Day , following the 2025 theme of “Be Tsunami Ready: Invest in Tsunami Preparedness”. The joint event hosted by UNDRR and UNESCO reflected on ten years of progress since the establishment of the campaign.
Many countries were represented with co-organisers coming from the Permanent Missions of Japan, Chile, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Both local leadership and tsunami education formed central themes to the commemoration, both of which were reflected in the feature of the “Stop Disasters” game as the perfect campaign-ready resource for events across the world.
COP 30, Brazil, 10-21 November
Brazil is taking strides to promote disaster risk awareness among young people. The translation of Stop Disasters into Brazilian Portuguese has already made an impact in classrooms across the municipality of Barcarena.
"By promoting the Stop Disasters Game in the classroom, we can see that our students, in an interactive and gamified way, learn how to deal with the pressing challenges of our time." - Waldeci Batista Lisboa Junior, Teacher of Digital and Technological Culture from the Department of Education of Barcarena
These local efforts to promote disaster risk awareness culminated in the featuring of the Stop Disasters game at the Barcarena booth during COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025.
Resources for teachers
Ever wanted to incorporate Stop Disasters into the classroom? To make it easy for teachers and educators to use the game as the perfect learning accompaniment, UNDRR have launched the new Stop Disasters for teachers page. Full of useful resources, lesson plans, and intriguing content on disaster risk reduction, the new page can guide teaching across a range of subjects, from geography through to politics.
Survey results
2025 also marked the launch of the Stop Disasters survey, so you can make your voice heard – and we want to hear from you!
The game received an average player satisfaction score of 3.75 stars out of 5, and half of people surveyed said they learnt something new about disaster risk reduction. In terms of how clear it is to succeed in the game, a score of 2.22/3 was earned.
Lastly, 72% of players said they would recommend the game to friends and family.
If you’ve enjoyed playing the Stop Disasters game, discover other ways you can get involved!