Farmville-like game raises money for Hurricane Sandy victims

It may well have been eight months since Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US last year, but restoring the destruction it caused is still ongoing. Repair The Rockaways is a new platform that gamifies the donation process to charities rebuilding communities in the affected area. Some 147 residents died as a result of the storm, while an estimated USD 53 million worth of damage was done to property. The Rockaways, a peninsula in the NYC borough of Queens was one of the worst hit areas, suffering floods and fires. Developed by creative agency Mother and digital media firm Casserole, Repair the Rockaways is an online platform styled similarly to Zynga’s famous Farmville game. Rather than attempting to build a working farm, the site encourages users to pay real money for digital coins, which they can use to buy building materials and place them on the map. If one person has placed some bricks on a plot, another can then add to that plot with the aim of completing a whole house. Videos documenting the repair work are unlocked depending on how much money is donated.