One of the interesting things about serious games development is the opportunities to create titles about unusual subjects, topics that might not otherwise find their way into games. Here's such an opportunity.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers has issued a RFP for "FloodManager," a game about floodplain management principles for local land developers. The full announcement, as well as information about an informational conference call about the RFP on Dec 2, comes after the jump.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) is a national organization of floodplain management professionals working to promote education, policies and activities that mitigate current and future losses, costs and human suffering caused by flooding. To advance this mission, in 1996 ASFPM established the non-profit ASFPM Foundation to be an incubator for research and education that promotes wise floodplain management. For more details see the ASFPM web site and the ASFPM Foundation web site.

To teach and reinforce fundamental floodplain management principles to groups of local land development decision makers, the ASFPM Foundation has released a Requests for Proposals (attached) for the development of a scenario-based serious game called FloodManager, and has established a committee consisting of flood hazard specialists with local, state and federal governments as well as professionals in the engineering and insurance industries to develop and refine the technical algorithms for the game.

To clarify the intent of the FloodManager RFP and answer any questions that respondents may have, a Pre-Proposal conference call will be held on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 from 11:00 am to 1:00 am EST. The Pre-Proposal conference call in number is 1-877-290-1337, PIN 3016703355. Participation in the Pre-Proposal conference call is not mandatory, but detailed minutes of the conference call will not be provided. Questions may be submitted in advance by 5:00 EST on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 via email to memberhelp@floods.org, with “FloodManager RFP Question” in the subject line. One original and 2 unbound copies of the proposal is due by 5:00 EST on December 19, 2008.

You have received this email because your organization has been identified as having either an interest in natural hazard mitigation or development of serious games for public policy education. If you are not the correct contact at your organization to receive this email, please forward this to the appropriate person. We look forward to your questions for the Pre-Proposal conference call, and to working with the successful development team to develop a tool to reduce flood losses in communities throughout our nation.