what’s next?: a speculative game on post-covid futures
CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO PLAY THE GAME
The game
“WHat’s Next?” is a gamified writing experience. The game projects the player in a post-covid future and asks the player to speculate (write) about this future from the perspective of SAL.
the game also functions as a self-reflection tool, which enables players to vent present concerns through envisioning the future.
THE interaction
This is a text-based narrative game, where players can write speculative stories on a post-covid future. As the game advances, a day in the life of sal unfolds.
Meanwhile, the player is occasionally prompted with a white box, in which they can write what they think sal sees, does, or hears in this speculative future.
THE CONCEPT
The scope of what’s next? is to inquire about futures post-COVID at the intersection between social constructionism and gamification. by playing the game, the player will engage with creative writing to produce socially constructed views of a future post-COVID world. as such, they will provide their unique perspective on how the future may unfold when dramatic events are affecting the present.
In that respect, the gamified experience can also be used as a tool to perform design-based research in the context of speculative and fictional design. The game is divided into five scenes, each presenting the player with a specific scenario (e.g., sal is sipping a cup of coffee by the window). For each scenario, the player will receive a prompt (e.g., “...why did Sal go out and what does Sal do?”), for which they will have to write down a speculative answer.
The programming and design of What’s Next? took approximately two months, where a group of three senior researchers with expertise in serious games, social constructionism, and HCI, supervised two graduate students throughout the entire design process. The game was designed using the open-source platform studycrafter.
watch the trailer of what’s next? below
The game what’s next? was created by the following team:
Giovanni Maria Troiano, Riddhi Padte, Feyyaz Mustafa Sonbudak, Matthew Wood, & Casper Harteveld.