Here is our on-going process for making our new show! We don’t have a name yet but this what we’re summarising it as, as of Oct 2020:
An escape-room style game about climate change.
An audience are asked to make choices that directly affect the experience of the next audience, for better or worse. In turn, they have to deal with the hand they have been dealt by the audiences before them.
The show explores the ethics of fighting climate change for the next generation through a fun, accessible and interactive format.
Below is a history of entire process from first idea to where we are now!
April 28th 2019: First Idea
The first time we ever spoke about the idea for the show, its main mechanic. We were preparing to scratch Coming Out Of My Cage - this was originally a formal idea for that show.
Click here to view the full conversation between Alex, Adam, Tim and Saxon)
September 12th 2019: Thinking About Audiences
We began to question who the audience would be for the work and realised it would come down to how we market/frame the show to audiences.
April 1st 2020: Finding Examples of Mechanics in Media
Death Stranding is a single player game that employs a ‘Strand System’ - this allows other players to leave things for future players to help them. There is a system to reward players for helping each other. We’ve never played the game, just thought these videos were interesting examples of a similar mechanic to the show being used in a game.
May 2nd 2020: Game Theory
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is arguably the most impotant problem in game theory, about predicting behaviour in players who are given the choice to work together or betray one another. We’re fascinated in applications of this teamworking vs betrayal mechanic in games, but also its application in the real world - especially when dealing with climate change.
June 29th 2020: Fuck You, Buddy!
We found some videos on YouTube of a documentary made by Adam Curtis about the use of game theory in real world applications, such as the cold war, Thatcher’s Prime Ministerial policy, and R D Laing’s assertion that all human relationships are merely people manipulating one another.
September 15th 2020:
This video explains the idea behind why aggression is a logical, viable survival tactic, and we began to apply this reasoning to politicians. This can explain why such an illogical idea, like refusing to help one another, can actually look as though it’s rational.
https://www.climatecentre.org/news/516/taking-science-to-society-a-game-on-the-ethics-of-providing-climate-services
https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/examples/62222.html
https://www.ft.com/content/5312691c-3d3c-11ea-b232-000f4477fbca
http://fqp.luiss.it/files/2014/06/2_Sandler_Smead_Game-Theory-and-the-Ethics-of-Global-Climate-Change_PPI_vol3_n1_2013.pdf
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/dystopia-climate-change-escape-room/