The Australian Bureau of Statistics is responsible for collecting, maintaining and promoting Australia’s Census data – the most complete and detailed statistical picture of the population and its characteristics.

However, most Australians have little interest in or awareness of Census data. Some aren’t even aware of what it’s used for, while others question why it’s collected in the first place. With the next Census just around the corner in 2016, this apathy could impact participation rates, and ultimately the quality of information gathered.

But the data is hugely important - the information is used to guide decisions on infrastructure, transport, education, and the environment. So while Census data might just look like a series of numbers on a spreadsheet, those numbers that can literally change people’s lives.

Of course, if you were a town planner, or a builder, or even a politician, you’d never question the usefulness of Census data – because you’re actually using it every day.

So what if we could put everyday Australians in a position where they actually needed to use the data for themselves?

We took the Census data from every suburb in Australia and turned it into a game.

Within days of launch, Run That Town shot to number 1 in the Entertainment category on the Apple App store, outranking popular commercial gaming titles. The unusual story of how a government department used this game to engage people in a dry subject was also featured on blogs, podcasts, TV and radio shows, raising further awareness for the ABS and Census data.

Articles and reviews of Run That Town appeared in gaming and technology sites including CNet, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Polygon, Buzzfeed and CVG. Hyper magazine, one of the largest gaming magazines in Australia, gave the game an 8/10, putting in the company of multi-million dollar AAA titles.

The app has received a consistent four star rating on the App Store from 40+ reviews, showing that people genuinely enjoy playing the game, while players continue to share their results, stats and in-game newspaper articles on social media, attracting more players to the game.

But most importantly, Run That Town has to date been downloaded more than 82,000 times, giving Australians a new appreciation of the Census data of their own local neighbourhoods, and showing them just how big a role those numbers play in all our lives.

The starting point of this project was the Census data itself. We wanted to create an experience where people could get a first-hand experience of the data, and where using it could help them understand its value.

We began by exploring the possibilities of letting people use mobile devices to access the Census data of their surrounding area. The challenge was that this approach would only reach people who were already familiar with the data, and would provide limited utility for the user. Australia-specific research from the Our Mobile Planet Global Smartphone Usage Report (http://think.withgoogle.com/mobileplanet/en/) showed that mobile gaming was incredibly popular among Australians, and indicated that this might be the perfect framework to get them experiencing the data for themselves.

So we explored how we could turn the data into a fun, engaging mobile game, and Run That Town was the result - a smartphone game that lets players take control of their own suburb, and make decisions about whether projects should be approved or rejected in their own local area. The reaction of the townsfolk to each of your decisions is based on the real Census data of your town, making consulting the Census data key to maintaining your popularity.

Being based on mobile devices, the game can be localised to your own home suburb using geolocation – or you can manually choose from any of Australia’s 2500+ postcodes. Once you’ve selected a suburb, the game uses the data from that area. This means that making the same decision can have drastically different outcomes in different parts of Australia, making the data more crucial to the game’s outcome, and therefore more valuable to the player.

While Run That Town is first and foremost a fun, light-hearted gaming experience, we built the game mechanic from the ground up around the Census data itself.

This data is freely and publically available, and can be seen at: http://www.abs.gov.au/census

The game casts you as the “mayor” of your own local area, responsible for approving or rejecting all proposed projects and developments in your suburb. Each project will be loved by one demographic, and hated by another, with the relevant Census data shown to the user to help them make the decision.

So while students might approve of a new bar opening up in town, families might be outraged. By looking at the relative size of each demographic, you need to make a call on which projects to accept, and which ones to reject. Rejecting a project that most of your population loves, or approving a project that most of them hate, can make your population plummet.

This game mechanic means that the player can’t just randomly choose to add projects to their town – they actually need to use the Census data to make the right decisions.

To create the game, we worked our way through the Census data to find groups that could be used as oppositional forces across a variety of projects. We also had to ensure that each group had enough variation that the sizes would differ from postcode to postcode, to make sure that the game would play quite differently depending on which town you were playing in.

Ultimately we gave every player a hands-on experience of the data, so they could use it for themselves, and start to discover just why these numbers can be such a critical part of the decision making process, and ultimately how the accuracy of these numbers could make a difference to their own lives.

All communicated through an entertaining experience that was genuinely fun to play.