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The Testing Bureau

Creating a climate fiction game to influence the

narrative of climate change

Ellen Mårtensson

ellen.martensson@gmail.com Interaktionsdesign Bachelor 22.5HP Spring / 2020 Supervisor: Li Jönsson

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Abstract

The stories humans tell and are told about climate change matters in our understanding of the phenomena, and have an impact on how we act in relation to it. However, climate fiction video games are few in numbers. This project presents the development of “The Testing Bureau”; an interactive fiction game with a story inspired by climate research. The research used is that of the shared socioeconomic pathways: five scenarios that present different socio-economic and political movements and their impact on mitigating and adapting to climate change (O’Neill et. al 2015). The game has been created as a response to the lack of climate fiction within video games, as well as being a way to make climate change research visible outside of scientific circles. Playtests indicated that the game held the potential of spurring personal reflection and engagement on the topics of the policies and possible endings.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to my wonderful partner and friends for love and support throughout the project, my supervisor Li for keeping me on track and on point, and the endless, endless cups of Earl Grey for sustenance along the way.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ... 2

1 Introduction ...6

1.1 Context and motivation ... 6

1.2 Aim ... 7

1.3 Research question ... 7

1.4 Delimitations ... 7

1.5 ”The Testing Bureau”: a short introduction ... 8

1.6 Design positioning ... 8

1.7 Ethical considerations ... 9

2 Background ...9

2.1 Climate Fiction and storytelling ... 10

2.1.1 What is climate fiction? Definition and short history ... 10

2.1.2 Humans and stories: a brief overview ... 11

2.1.3 Reimagining climate change ... 12

2.1.4 Climate change as a cultural phenomenon ... 13

2.1.5 Climate fiction video games ... 13

2.2 Interactive fiction ... 14

2.3 The science behind the game: the shared socio-economic pathways17 2.3.1 What are the SSPs? ... 17

2.3.2 The SSP narratives ... 18

2.4 Related work: climate fiction games and interactive fiction ... 19

3 Methods ...23

3.1 Double Diamond ... 23

3.2 Literature studies ... 25

3.3 Sketching and prototyping ... 25

3.4 Playtesting ... 26 4 Design Process ... 29 4.1 Finding a beginning ... 29 4.2 First ideas ... 29 4.3 Motivating a choice ... 31 4.3.1 Making it text-based ... 31

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4.4 Exploring IF as a material ... 31

4.5 Developing the story of the game ... 32

4.6 Exploring text as a design material ... 33

4.6.1 Prototype 1: “Text-based point and click” ... 33

4.6.2 Prototype 2: A dialogue-centred approach ...34

4.7 First iteration: two beginnings, positioning, and style ... 36

4.7.1 Intro 1: less descriptions ...36

4.7.2 Intro 2: more descriptions ... 40

4.8 Designing the decision-making ... 41

4.9 Three different endings ... 43

4.10 Second iteration: adding content and centering text ... 45

4.11 Playtesting ... 48

4.12 Third iteration ... 49

4.13 Last playtests and changes ... 51

4.14 Final design suggestion ... 51

5 Discussion ... 54

5.1 Relating to the research question... 54

5.2 Self-evaluation and suggestions for further research ... 55

6 Conclusion ... 56

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1 Introduction

1.1 Context and motivation

Narrative, imagination, and stories have been argued to be a part of how humans create meaning, form knowledge, and perceive our role as agents in the world (e.g. Brockmeier, 2009; Yusoff & Gabrys, 2011). In other words, the stories and imaginings we create and consume about climate change - “the defining issue of our time”, as stated by the United Nations on their official website (n.d., para. 1) – could play a vital role in how we see and experience it, as well as what we deem possible in relation to it.

From this perspective, the emerging genre of climate fiction in literature harbors the possibility of shaping readers’ perception of climate change. Climate fiction is a relatively new genre in literature (mainly), generally defined as dealing with the concept of human-caused climate change, and often making use of climate-related research in its stories (e.g Evancie, 2013; Irr, 2017; Ullrich, 2015).

While the number of “cli-fi” books are increasing, and movies are also being found in the genre, climate fiction video games outside the sphere of specifically educational games are few (B. Abraham & Jayemanne, 2017). With motivation from the possibility of narrative and imagination in human meaning-making around climate change, comes this thesis’ aim of contributing towards more climate fiction in a context where few are found – namely video games. In this thesis I present the theoretical and practical work behind the creation of a text-based climate fiction game – “The Testing Bureau” (text-based games are often called “interactive fiction”, and these two terms are used interchangeably throughout the thesis).

Like with much of the literary climate fiction, the game’s story and concept is based on existing climate change research. The creation of the “The Testing Bureau” is therefore not only a way to counter the low numbers of climate fiction games, but also a way to “bring out” real climate-change-related research, otherwise likely to stay in the scientific sphere. The research used for the creation of “The Testing Bureau” is that of the shared socioeconomic

pathways, or SSPs. The SSPs are projections of five possible futures where

socioeconomic and political developments are shown to cause either high, moderate or low challenges to the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change (O’Neill et al., 2015).

The SSP development is part of the research community’s response to an IPCC (the intergovernmental panel on climate change) request for a new set of scenarios that would “facilitate future assessment of climate change” (van Vuuren et al., 2011, p. 6). While the SSPs’ primary target group is the research and assessment communities, they offer peer-reviewed research on the topics

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of mitigation and adaptation that might be used as source of knowledge in a more public audience as well. The SSPs appear however to be mostly discussed in the research communities or climate-niched media (such as UK-based carbonbrief.org (Hausfather, 2018), further motivating the use of the SSPs in a climate fiction game. In fact, this project began from the angle of exploring ways to use interaction design to bring the knowledge of the SSPs out to a broader public. Learning about climate fiction games and the potential of narratives surrounding climate change through initial literature studies, gave a direction still connected to the original inquiry, but with a modified focus including climate fiction.

1.2 Aim

This thesis aims to give an example of how interaction design can be used to contribute to the narrative and meaning-making of climate change. Here, it is done with a suggestion for a climate fiction story in a context where there are few (in this case the medium of video games), by making use of climate research that otherwise likely would have stayed in the scientific sphere.

1.3 Research question

How might the SSP research be made available outside of the scientific sphere through the creation of a climate fiction game, and how might such a game relate to human meaning-making around climate change?

1.4 Delimitations

An early research question in this project focused solely on making the shared socioeconomic pathways visible outside of the scientific sphere. Initial research and ideation phases brought forth for example ideas of creating tangible artefacts from different SSP futures, as well as making a game based on the SSP research. Around this time, the corona pandemic spread to Sweden and heavily influenced the choice of making something digital instead of tangible. This was in order to be able to perform tests without the need for physical meetings that suddenly were out of question. The pandemic itself had to be a delimitation, since it limited the use of certain kinds of practical methods, influencing the direction of the project.

Making a climate fiction video game can be done in various ways. With “The Testing Bureau”, I specifically set out to create one in the form of interactive fiction (i.e. text-based) as a way to connect to the literary genre of climate fiction. This delimited the game’s primary means of interaction to be text, and the presentation of text.

The time frame for the project influenced a delimitation for the length of the game to be fairly short, affecting the design of the story and how it was presented and interacted with.

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1.5 ”The Testing Bureau”: a short introduction

While described in further detail in the “Design Process” chapter, this section offers a brief introduction to “The Testing Bureau”.

1.5.1 Story and concept

The organization called “The Testing Bureau”, established in the near future, has as its mission to explore the possible consequences of political decisions. To do this, The Bureau - as it is often called - performs a large number of simulations each day, all with varying level of advancement and detail. In the game, the player takes part in one such simulation where they are to make decisions as if being an all-mighty leader of a country. This is done by deciding on 10 different policy suggestions. Depending on the player’s choices, the simulation is steered towards one of three futures (inspired by the shared socioeconomic pathways). According to The Bureau, the data is collected from the simulations and then processed to be sent to the UN, as a way to inform leaders of the world on how their decisions might affect the future.

The 10 policies presented to the player are two-option questions covering topics such as investments in health or education, high or low corporate taxes, and sustainability. The writing of the game is humoristic – a style of writing that in playtests was stated as making “a serious topic more approachable” (paraphrased and translated from Swedish).

1.6 Design positioning

This project is an interaction design project but draws upon both game design and speculative design principles.

Interaction design can shortly be defined as “the design of interactive products and services in which a designer’s focus goes beyond the item in development to include the way users will interact with it” (Interaction Design Foundation, 2019). The “product” in this case, is a climate fiction video game, with “user’s” interactions with the game (investigated through playtests) as a key source of influence for how it should be designed.

1.6.1 Drawing on game design

While interaction design practice might include user tests to gain insight into how users interact with a certain artefact, it has in this project been relevant to draw upon terminology more associated with game design, given that the project has included the creation of a game. The possible “users” of the game are therefore here called players, and the “user tests” playtests.

The set-up of the playtests has been based on game design literature by Fullerton (Fullerton, 2008)

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1.6.2 Speculative design influence

This form of design thrives on imagination and aims to open up new perspectives on what are sometimes called wicked problems, to create spaces for discussion and debate about alternative ways of being, and to inspire and encourage people’s imaginations to flow freely.

(Dunne & Raby, 2013) The creation of “The Testing Bureau” explores the use of stories and speculations about the future as way to influence the meaning-making and narrative surrounding the “wicked problem” that is climate change. To Dunne and Raby, speculative design is a way to make use of ideas about possible futures in order to open up for discussion about the present, and what kind of future people might or might not want (2013).

This project is influenced by the ideas found in speculative design practice as described by Dunne and Raby, but was not limited to a certain speculative design definition.

1.7 Ethical considerations

This project has followed the rules on ethics and norms in research as stated by The Swedish Research Council in “Good Research Practice” (2017). All participants in the project’s playtests were informed of the nature of the project, and that while playtests were conducted via voice or video meetings online, none of the content was being recorded. No personal data apart from first names was collected to be used by me while taking notes, later to be changed to pseudonyms in both the thesis and notes.

It is worth noting that the ten policies and their possible outcomes in “The testing Bureau” are representations of my knowledge of the shared socioeconomic pathways narratives, and I am no climate scientist. The game can, and should not stand as a scientifically correct rendering of the research. I have as a designer to the best of my abilities stayed as correct as possible to the SSPs, while still creating simplified policies based on them in order to create a game of a certain length, tone and style.

2 Background

This chapter presents background information and theories relevant for the design process of “The Testing Bureau”. I begin with presenting the genre of climate fiction, and an investigation into the role and possible impact of stories and narrative in human culture. This is followed by a look at climate fiction in video games today, upon which I present the concept of interactive

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fiction and the shared socioeconomic pathways. The chapter ends with a collection of related works presenting examples of existing climate fiction video games, as well as a selection of interactive fiction games.

2.1 Climate Fiction and storytelling

In this section, I present the concept of climate fiction, followed by a brief look at the general role and impact of stories and storytelling in human culture. Through that lens I also discuss how stories about the climate - such as climate fiction - might impact our understanding and experience of climate change. Lastly, I move on to the concept of climate fiction video games.

2.1.1 What is climate fiction? Definition and short history

An exact definition of what counts as climate fiction, or “cli-fi”, is hard to come by. According to Angela Evancie’s story “So Hot Right Now: Has Climate Change Created a New Literary Genre?” run by American public broadcaster NPR in 2013, the difference between sci-fi and cli-fi lies in that “sci-fi usually takes place in a dystopian future, [while] cli-fi happens in a dystopian present” (para. 8). Author J.K Ullrich does not set a specific time-stamp on cli-fi, but writes in The Atlantic that cli-fi stories examine the impact of global warming (as well as pollution and rising sea levels) on human civilization (2015). This aligns with Carren Irr’s entry on climate fiction in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature(further referred to as ORE), where the genre is described as imagining “the causes, effects, and feeling of global warming” (2017, para. 1). The same ORE entry states that even if climate fiction can vary in style, it often pays “marked attention to the perspective of scientists” (para 4). A The Guardian article from 2017 by Dr John Abraham, professor of thermal sciences, also points out climate fiction books as bringing real science surrounding climate change to the reader. Fiction and stories surrounding a changing climate is not a new phenomenon: one might be familiar with the tellings of tidal waves and floods from the stories about both Gilgamesh and Noah. In the 20th century, novels like Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sands of Mars” from 1951 and Frank Herbert’s “Dune” from 1965 both cover the concept of terraforming - the “purposeful transformation of a planet’s climate” (Trexler, 2015, p. 8). Nuclear winter was a recurring theme around the same time, with for example Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” from 1968 (Trexler, 2015).

In his book “Anthropocene Fictions : The Novel in a Time of Climate Change”, Adam Trexler points to Ursula LeGuin’s “The Lathe of Heaven” from 1971 as being the first novel “directly concerned with an anthropogenic greenhouse effect” (2015, p. 8). From then, the number of climate change novels has seen a more or less steady rise throughout the 90’s and into the first decades of the 21st century (Trexler, 2015). The abbreviation of climate fiction into “cli-fi” seems to have taken hold in the late 2000’s (Ullrich, 2015), with writer Dan Bloom likely to have played a big role through his website The Cli-Fi Report

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(Irr, 2017). However, the term’s distinct origins seem to be somewhat unclear (Irr, 2017). To summarize the slightly inconsistent definitions of the genre, the overhanging theme of modern climate fiction seems to be that it deals with human-caused climate change, and often makes use of science in its translation to fiction.

What role might climate fiction play in human understanding and experience of climate change? To investigate this, I will briefly explore the role of storytelling in human culture, to then zoom in on stories and their possible impact on our understanding about climate change in particular.

2.1.2 Humans and stories: a brief overview

According to Jens Brockmeier, a senior scientist at the Psychology Department of Free University Berlin, narrative is a form of language use “crucial to our creative and imaginative potentialities” (2009, p. 226). In fact, Brockmeier proposes that narrative imagination should be understood as “a form and practice of human agency” (p. 227). Regarding stories and storytelling (be it myths and legends or gossiping), it can be said that it is a human universal, meaning that it can be found among “all peoples known to ethnography and history” (Brown, 2004, p. 47). Good storytellers seem to be highly regarded and valued in human society: it only takes a look at the plethora of stories communicated through different mediums today to guess that humans have a tendency to want and/or need stories. In a study on storytelling within the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population, the researchers found that camp-level cooperation seemed positively linked with a higher proportion of skilled storytellers in the camp (Smith et al., 2017). They also discovered that good storytellers were favored among the Agta as social partners, above non-skilled storytellers that had a better “fishing reputation” - even if food sharing is a prominent characteristic within Agta society (2017).

The effect of stories and storytelling can be also be seen on a neurological level. In her book “Rising Strong” from 2015, research professor Brené Brown (University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work) writes about neuroeconomist Paul Zak’s research that shows that listening to a story results in the releasing of cortisol and oxytocin - chemicals that play a role in our ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning (Brown, 2015). Brown summarizes it neatly: “We’re wired for story.”(2015, p. 6). Relating to the Agta, it would perhaps not be surprising if a higher proportion of skilled storytellers is what is causing a higher level of cooperation, as opposed to the other way around.

Returning to Brockmeier, narration and narratives can be seen as a way to communicate and negotiate meanings - as well as being a tool for the creation of new meanings (2009). He writes that in constructing narratives, we “not

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only use established cultural patterns and models, but also tackle experiences, ideas and feelings that break with them and go beyond the common ground.” (2009, p. 227). In other words, stories and narratives may help us make sense of and communicate around what already is - as well as what could become. Applied to the topic of climate change, it could be argued that the stories we produce and consume (if a line can be drawn between the two) regarding the climate make up a large part of how we create meaning surrounding it - and affect what we deem possible or probable for us as agents in relation to it. The creation and consumption of climate fiction could in other words be a driving force in understanding and interpreting climate change.

2.1.3 Reimagining climate change

Before narrowing in on climate fiction games, I will take a closer look on Yusoff and Gabrys’ paper “Climate change and the imagination” from 2011, to further explore the connection between imagination and the meaning-making of climate change.

Yusoff and Gabrys investigate the imagination as a way of understanding how climate change exists in not only the scientific sphere, but also in culture and society. Imagination is defined here as “a way of seeing, sensing, thinking and dreaming the formulation of knowledge, which creates the conditions for material interventions in and political sensibilities of the world” (Yusoff & Gabrys, 2011, p. 1). Further on, they see imagination as not something found merely inside our heads in stark contrast to the world surrounding us, but as a “site of interplay between material and perceptual worlds” (p. 2). In that site of interplay, “concepts cohere, forces pull and attract, and things, discourses, subjects and objects are framed, contested, and brought into being” (p.2). It is also here that new knowledge about climate change will find itself in contest with already existing knowledge and imaginations surrounding the climate (Yusoff and Gabrys, 2011) - or, as Brockmeier might put it, it would where we make use of existing cultural patterns and where new concepts and feelings come into being (2009).

According to Yusoff and Gabrys, the concept of climate change was starting to be reimagined around the time they wrote their paper (2011). It was increasingly being seen and dealt with as a societal and cultural problem, instead of merely a scientific one (Yusoff and Gabrys, 2011). One way that this reimagination of climate change is seen is, according to the authors, in the “critical engagement with the practices of climate science” of the time (p.2), where the production of climate science was suggested to be increasingly expanding into taking the social spaces of climate interaction into consideration. It is also described to be exploring new forms of coproduction between different fields - mentioning science-art and art-public collaborations as examples (Yusoff and Gabrys, 2011). In such work,

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environmental data can be put into different context than its original scientific setting, and possibly be used with more diverse publics – suggested to be a way to democratize climate science (Yusoff and Gabrys, 2011)

Another example of the acknowledgement of a cultural direction of the concept of climate change might be the “futurity of climate change”. In this term, Yusoff and Gabrys include the practices of building scenarios to explore possible futures (much like the SSPs that have taken a main role in the design part of this thesis project), as well as futures being imagined in popular culture through “catastrophic renderings of climate change” (2011, p. 5).

2.1.4 Climate change as a cultural phenomenon

Based on Brockmeier’s and Yusoff and Gabrys’ writings, it can be said that climate change is a cultural phenomenon and not “just” as a scientific one, and that our meaning-making around climate (and understanding of ourselves as agents in it), is created by a continuous interplay between old and new knowledge, feelings and narratives. From this angle, climate fiction can be seen at the interplay of science and culture and play a valuable role in how we relate to climate change.

The often-told catastrophic stories about climate change in popular culture mentioned by Yusoff and Gabrys (2011) might often be of somewhat questionable scientific integrity, but can still offer a way to reflect on topics such as fear, worry and adaptation to an apocalyptic word. As Yusoff and Gabrys puts it: “The arts and humanities play an important role in thinking through our representations of environmental change and give tangible form to the imagination of different worlds outside of the constraints of the given present.” (2011, p. 3). Non-catastrophic climate fiction can be motivated with the same argument; it can act as a way to “think through” how we might act and feel regarding climate change outside of the apocalyptic narrative. This brings us to take a look at video games, where the imaginings of different worlds “outside of the constraints of the given present” as Yusoff and Gabrys might have put it, have existed throughout the life-span of the medium, but where climate change only just recently seem to make a somewhat more prominent appearance.

2.1.5 Climate fiction video games

Climate Fiction is not only found in the literary genre – climate fiction movies also exist. The amount of mainstream films about climate change seem to be less than what is found in literature however, and has been argued to be less nuanced that their literary counterpart (Trexler, 2015). Video games stand out with their absence in the general discussion of climate fiction: most climate-oriented games can be found in the category of “educational” or “serious” games, and there seems to be a lack of climate fiction games

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produced for popular or commercial consumption (Abraham & Jayemanne, 2017).

Since Abraham and Jayemanne’s article there have been some development in the area, if still in seemingly small numbers: the 2019 release of an expansion to the popular strategy game “Sid Meier’s: Civilization VI” called “Gathering storms”, lets human-caused climate change take centre stage with rising sea levels threatening to swallow up cities. “Green cities” is a 2017 expansion to the city simulation game “Cities: Skylines” that lets players build cities with a focus on sustainability. These two are both included in the “Related works” section of this thesis (section 2.4).

2.2 Interactive fiction

The previous sections presented the role of narratives and climate fiction, as well as their relation to human understanding of climate change and a look at climate fiction video games today. Here, I move on to the topic of interactive fiction, relating to the text-based game that makes up the practical work of this thesis project.

Creating interactive fiction requires an understanding of different kinds of text-based games, and how they function. Therefore, I here define and compare three main categories of interactive fiction.

2.2.1 Defining and comparing interactive fiction

Exactly what counts as interactive fiction (from here on abbreviated as IF) varies, but The Interactive Fiction Competition (IFComp) (an annual event accepting “all kinds of text-driven digital stories and games” since 1995) - define it as such:

Generally speaking, IFComp entries are videogames whose player interactions center on text. They communicate to their players primarily by displaying text, and players respond in turn by pushing text back at them, one way or another.

(IFComp, n.d., para. 2) According to the IFComp, the definition of IF has evolved since the first years of the competition, and now include three main categories: parser-based, hypertext, and choice-based (sometimes referred to as CYOA, meaning “choose your own adventure”):

1. Parser-based interactive fiction:

This kind of IF lets players interact with the game by typing in actions they wish to perform. It might look like this:

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There are two scrawny-looking houseplants in the window. Frida, your pet turtle, is lying in on the floor in the sunshine. >_

In the text prompt (The “ >_ “), the player can type in an action. This might be “Water the plants”, or “Examine Frida”. These inputs are recognized by a component called a parser, upon which new text will be presented based on what the player chose to do (Montfort, 2005). According to IFComp, this type of IF usually requires some experience from the player to play effectively (n.d). It requires practice to know how inputs should be typed to be readable by the parser, as well as what actions are possible to progress in the game. In the past, IFComp saw a vast majority of entries being parser-based, but there has been an increase of other types of IF in the 2010’s (IFComp, n.d.).

2. Hypertext IF:

Instead of having the player think of possible actions and typing them in, as in a parser-based IF game, the hypertext version highlights certain words in the text that the player can click on. Doing this might expand the text to offer a more detailed description, present new choices to decide from, or bring forth a new “location” to explore in the game (IFComp, n.d.). Using the same example as earlier but in a hypertext version could look like this:

There are two scrawny-looking houseplantsin thewindow. Frida, your pet turtle, islying on the floor in the sunshine.

Clicking on the highlighted “lying on the floor” could show the following text as a result:

You lie down on the floor next to Frida. Looking up, the ceiling proves a blank canvas for your eyes to rest on.

A clear difference between hypertext and parser-based IF is the apparent visibility of the possible actions in a hypertext version. A parser-based IF could be said to offer a more exploratory game experience, while a hypertext version might be easier to get a grip on early for inexperienced players, not having to come up with their possible actions (IFComp, n.d).

3. Choice-based IF:

Just like in hypertext IF, the choice-based version of IF presents the player with available options to choose from (IFComp, n.d). It does so by alternating “story text” and options, which might look like this:

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There are two scrawny-looking houseplants in the window. Frida, your pet turtle, is lying in on the floor in the sunshine. - Poor plants. Let’s water them.

- The sun looks nice. Lie down next to Frida.

- Look out the window.

- “Hi Frida, did you eat your lettuce today?”

IFComp points out that this set-up for narration and dialogue is not exclusive for IF: it can be found in numerous modern commercial games as a narrative mechanic (n.d). They clarify however, that in choice-based IF this type of interaction is the driving force of the game, and not one of many game mechanics (n.d).

2.2.1.1 Comparing the three: affordances and signifiers

Comparing parser-based and hypertext IF, one might apply the terminology of affordances and signifiers, defined as such by Don Norman: “affordances define what actions are possible”, and “signifiers specify how people discover those possibilities: signifiers are signs, perceptible signals of what can be done” (Norman, 2013, p. XV). The highlighted text in a hypertext IF game holds the possibility to reveal more text upon clicking, i.e. it affords “clickability” (or sometimes, “hoverability”, when extra information is revealed upon hovering the mouse over the text), as well as the possibility for the player to perform an action in the story of the game when clicking on it. The blue colour in the hyper-text example above acts as a signifier for both of these affordances.

In a parser-based IF on the other hand, you could still be allowed to “do” the same things in the story of the game; lying down on the floor or watering the plants for example, but it is not shown as clearly as in its hypertext counterpart. Certain content of the text in a parser-based IF could eventually

become a signifier for a player who gradually learns to see specific words as

indicators of actions available to them.

In a choice-based IF, the player’s options can be clearly stated: if you click this, your character says this, or does that. A game creator can of course make these alternatives somewhat cryptic, leading to the options not fully acting as signifiers for the affordances of the game’s story progression. If the options are clearly presented (like with a bullet list in the choice-based IF example above), they act as signifiers both for the affordance of “clickability”, and as signifiers for the “story affordances”. In other words, both hypertext and choice-based IF can have very clear signifiers, but choice of language can greatly affect how much they actually reveal about what will happen if you click on them.

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2.3 The science behind the game: the shared

socio-economic pathways

As mentioned earlier, real scientific research is often used in the genre of climate fiction. So is the case with “The Testing Bureau”, where apart from just making a climate fiction game, the goal was to make the research on the shared socioeconomic pathways (the SSPs) experienceable outside of a scientific paper. Here I present the SSPs, and further focus on the three SSPs used in the game.

2.3.1 What are the SSPs?

The SSPs are five scenarios - or pathways - of possible futures. They offer a look at how humans might find it easier, or harder, to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change, all depending on various socioeconomic and political developments (O’Neill et al., 2015). The research behind the SSPs is extensive: a number of papers cover topics such as land-use, air quality and long-term economic growth projections in the different SSPs. In “The roads ahead: Narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century” (2015), authored by no less than twelve scientists, O’Neill et.al offer a qualitative description of the scenarios: the SSP narratives.

Combining qualitative and quantitative components is not unusual when it comes to the concept of social development scenarios, and the paper states that while for example population and economic growth can be “meaningfully quantified”, qualitative narratives “describe the evolution of aspects of society that are difficult to project quantitatively (such as the quality of institutions, political stability, environmental awareness, etc.)” (O’Neill et. al 2015, p. 170). The qualitative narratives can also describe the relationship between different quantifiable elements of a scenario (O’Neill et. al 2015). The SSPs are not the only existing scenarios investigating climate change. The “representative concentration pathways” (or RCPs in short) is another set on scenarios, focusing on “possible trajectories of atmospheric concentrations of key greenhouse gases” (O’Neill, et. al 2015, p. 170). Both the RCPs and SSPs are part of a three-phase process, where the two scenario sets have been developed parallel to each other, to be followed by a third “final integration and dissemination phase” (van Vuuren et al., 2011, p.7). The three-phase process was designed as an answer to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (The IPCC) request from 2007, where scientific communities were asked to develop a new set of scenarios that would “facilitate future assessment of climate change” (van Vuuren et al., 2011).

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2.3.2 The SSP narratives

There are five SSP’s:

- SSP1: Sustainability - Taking the green road - SSP2: Middle of the road

- SSP3: Regional rivalry - A rocky road - SSP4: Inequality - A road divided

- SSP5: Fossil-fuelled development - Taking the highway (O’Neill et. al, 2015) In “The Testing Bureau”, the player “ends up” in an interpretation of one of three SSPs: 1, 2 or 3. Below are summarized versions of these three SSPs narratives. These summaries come from “The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview” (Riahi et al., 2017):

SSP1: Sustainability - Taking the green road

The world shifts gradually, but pervasively, toward a more sustainable path, emphasizing more inclusive development that respects perceived environmental boundaries. Management of the global commons slowly improves, educational and health investments accelerate the demographic transition, and the emphasis on economic growth shifts toward a broader emphasis on human well-being. Driven by an increasing commitment to achieving development goals, inequality is reduced both across and within countries. Consumption is oriented toward low material growth and lower resource and energy intensity.

(Riahi et al., 2017, p. 157)

SSP2: Middle of the road

The world follows a path in which social, economic, and technological trends do not shift markedly from historical patterns. Development and income growth proceeds unevenly, with some countries making relatively good progress while others fall short of expectations. Global and national institutions work toward but make slow progress in achieving sustainable development goals. Environmental systems experience degradation, although there are some improvements and overall the intensity of resource and energy use declines. Global population growth is moderate and levels off in the second half of the century. Income inequality persists or improves only slowly and challenges to reducing vulnerability to societal and environmental changes remain.

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SSP3: Regional Rivalry - A rocky road

A resurgent nationalism, concerns about competitiveness and security, and regional conflicts push countries to increasingly focus on domestic or, at most, regional issues. Policies shift over time to become increasingly oriented toward national and regional security issues. Countries focus on achieving energy and food security goals within their own regions at the expense of broader-based development. Investments in education and technological development decline. Economic development is slow, consumption is material-intensive, and inequalities persist or worsen over time. Population growth is low in industrialized and high in developing countries. A low international priority for addressing environmental concerns leads to strong environmental degradation in some regions.

(Riahi et al., 2017, p. 157) Having presented the topics of climate fiction, interactive fiction and the SSPs, we now move on to looking at some related work in the climate fiction and interactive fiction sphere.

2.4 Related work: climate fiction games and interactive

fiction

To provide more context for the interactive climate fiction game created in this project, this section presents a small collection of already existing climate fiction games, followed by three examples of choice-based IF games.

2.4.1 Climate fiction games

Just as with told and written stories, there are a number of video games dealing with the effects of a changing climate in one way or another (post-nuclear winters is one such example, in for example the “Fallout” franchise published by Bethesda Softworks), but games more clearly focusing on the anthropogenic climate change the world is experiencing today, are few (Abraham & Jayemanne, 2017). There are however at least two examples from recent years: “Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm” and “Cities Skylines: Green cities”. It might be worth noting that both of these are expansions, and that the original base games of “Civilization VI” and “Cities Skylines” do not include the same focus on climate change.

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2.4.1.1 Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Figure 1: image from the Steam shop page of "Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm".

Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise is a simulation strategy series that lets the player take on the role of leading a civilization through the ages of time. “Gathering Storm” (figure 1), released in 2019 by 2K, is the most recent expansion to Civilization VI (at the time of writing), and introduces new game concepts that greatly affect how the game is played. If the world releases too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the temperature and sea level rises. This has direct consequences for the civilizations in the game: place cities along the coast and they might get swallowed by the sea after the industrial era.

2.4.1.2 Cities skylines: Green Cities

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Just like Civilization, “Cities Skylines” is a simulation game, but lets the player build and manage a modern time city instead of a country throughout history. The original “Cities Skylines” game was released in 2015 by Paradox Interactive, and the “Green cities” (figure 2) expansion came out in 2017, adding content such as recycling centers, water treatment plants and biofuel bus depots. The “seriousness” of Green cities is not quite on the same level as in “Gathering Storm” mentioned above – your city does for example not risk being swallowed by rising sea levels. Going for more sustainable city-building options generally increase the happiness and well-being of its citizens in this game, however.

2.4.2 Interactive fiction games

The three interactive fiction games presented below acts as examples of how interactive fiction (IF) games can vary in use (or no use) of graphics and sound, while maintaining text as the main medium for interaction with the story. These games also showcase a variety of themes found in IF games – especially comparing “Kyle is famous” and “Coming out Simulator”, the first and last examples. This list is not meant to be a representation of significant games in the history of IF but has been narrowed down to include choice-based IF games, relating better to this project.

2.4.2.1 Kyle is famous

Can be played for free at ducky-dev.itch.io/kyle-is-famous.

Figure 3: Screenshot from “Kyle is Famous”.

“Kyle is Famous” (figure 3) by John Szymanski (“Ducky”) offers an example of how text-based games can use simple visual elements, and not merely text. In this game, the player acts as the character of Kyle: a talk-show host with an important interview planned at the end of the day. “Kyle is famous” uses simple graphics to present the story and possible actions (the white square

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boxes neatly sort these actions, and have been animated to slide in and out of sight when clicked), as well as a small amount of sound effects. This stands in contrast with for example “Choice of Robots” presented below.

2.4.2.2 Choice of Robots by Kevin Gold

The two first chapters of the game are available to play for free at choiceofgames.com/robots.

Figure 4: Screenshot from "Choice of Robots".

Choice of Robots (figure 4) is described as a “300,000-word interactive sci-fi novel” by its creator Kevin Gold. The game lets you play through thirty years as a “brilliant robot maker”: from the days as a young PhD student, to a future heavily influenced by robots. The player’s choices directly affect how these robots look and act, and how the life of the character will develop. The game stands as an example of a text-based game that does not use any sound effects or graphic.

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2.4.2.3 Coming Out Simulator

Can be played for free at ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014.

Figure 5: Screenshot from "Coming Out Simulator", taken by author while playing.

“Coming Out Simulator” (figure 5) by Nicky Case offers a look at a game that uses text as its main form of interaction, but where graphics help in illustrating the story. Case lets the player take the role of a semi-fictional self of the game’s creator, and play through a conversation where he comes out to his highly conservative parents. The game progresses mainly through dialogue, but makes use of sound to a larger extent than the other IF games in this list, for example with ongoing background noises in the introductory coffee shop setting.

3 Methods

This chapter presents the methods used in the theoretical and practical work of the project.

3.1 Double Diamond

This thesis project was carried out based on the Double Diamond: a design process model launched in 2004 by British Design Council (Design Council, 2019). Implementing the model means adopting the concepts of divergent and convergent thinking: when diverging, the designer explores an issue, to then take focused action in the converging stages (Design Council, 2019). The

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model is divided in four phases: discover (diverging), define (converging), develop (diverging), and deliver (converging), and can be described in short as such (based on the Design Council (2019)):

Discover: In this phase, the topic/assumed problem is investigated to provide

relevant knowledge for the design work. Literature studies is one example of how this investigation can be executed.

Define: Knowledge gained from the discover phase can help in

(re)formulating the challenge/problem.

Develop: This phase encourages the exploration of different possible ideas

that answers to the stated problem.

Deliver: Ideas are tested in order to sort out concepts that do not work and

decide on ones to develop further.

The descriptions above are not necessarily exclusive to only one phase: to create and test early ideas can for example be part of the “discover” phase (Design Council, 2019). The image below (figure 6) shows a Double Diamond model adapted to this project, and also depicts how the previously mentioned phases can stand subject to iterations both within, between, and encompassing the two diamonds.

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3.2 Literature studies

Literature studies were conducted to gain knowledge on topics relating to the project. These topics were primarily: climate change and climate change research (mainly focusing on the future(s) of and with climate change), speculative design, storytelling and narration, climate fiction in literature and video games, interactive fiction, and the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). I also investigated existing speculative design projects relating to climate change, as well as climate fiction video games and interactive fiction games.

This research allowed me to identify a design opportunity, as well as gain the needed theoretical knowledge to design a concept suggestion related to it.

3.3 Sketching and prototyping

Goldschmidt has referred to sketching as an “extension of mental imagery” (Goldschmidt, 2003, p. 82). Through this extension, it can be used to assess and quickly manipulate existing images in our minds (Goldschmidt, 2003). Houde and Hill (1997) define a prototype as “any representation of a design idea, regardless of medium” (p. 369), making sketches a kind of prototype according to their definition.

Different prototypes serve different purposes. Houde and Hill presented a model in 1997 with three main categories of “what prototypes prototype”;

role, implementation, and look and feel. They define them as such:

“Role" refers to questions about the function that an artifact serves in a user's life--the way in which is it useful to them. "Look and feel" denotes questions about the concrete sensory experience of using an artifact - what the user looks at, feels, and hears while using it. "Implementation" refers to questions about the techniques and components through which an artifact performs its function - the "nuts and bolts" of how it actually works.

(Houde & Hill, 1997) In this project, these different kinds of prototypes can be found both in hand-drawn sketches and in digital form. Sketching on paper has been used as a way to explore ideas in a fast and easily manipulated way, and through that, providing a tool for evaluation of the concepts. I have also sketched on paper things that later were to be put in digital form, but that were quicker to manipulate and develop on paper beforehand. Various digital prototypes of the game have been used in for example online playtesting to provide insights to both look and feel, role and implementation.

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3.3.1 Software for digital prototyping: Adobe XD

The digital prototypes of “The Testing Bureau” have been created in Adobe XD. Adobe XD is not a tool meant for the creation of interactive fiction – it is software for prototyping the behavior and interfaces of websites and apps. In this however, it has the potential to allow for relatively fast prototyping when it comes to creating animated transitions in the presentation of for example text. Manipulating attributes such as the speed of which text is presented, or being able to animate the text by for example spelling out a word letter by letter, allowed me to experiment with rhythm and emphasis in the written dialogues of the game, without requiring time-consuming manipulation of code or CSS (“cascading style sheets”, a language used to set visual properties of a web page, like colors and fonts, and that can be used for simple animations of text) upon each change. This is, to the extent of my knowledge and research, otherwise often needed in the software dedicated to the creation of interactive fiction (such as Twine).

Adobe XD also allows for easy distanced user testing by creating a link for the prototype that testers then open in a regular browser in their computer.

3.3.1.1 Limitations to Adobe XD

Making a short interactive fiction game in Adobe XD is absolutely possible, but towards the end of the project it became apparent that it would have been insufficient for making anything bigger. The next step in a continued development of the game would have been to work with a programmer, using code to effectively keep track of a player’s many choices throughout the game - without having to create a plethora or artboards in Adobe XD.

Artboards are representations of the intended screen when prototyping in Adobe XD. These can be set to for example the proportions of different standard smartphones or computer screen sizes. Each change of text in “The Testing Bureau” requires one artboard, and so, allowing multiple endings and choices in the game using Adobe XD prompts for several artboards to create a kind of “decision tree”, as a way to keep track of the player’s choices. While Adobe XD allowed for fairly easy manipulation of the text and visuals of the game without changing code every time, the file size became rather large towards the end.

3.4 Playtesting

With the primary focus of creating an interesting game experience, playtesters were mostly selected to be people who already play video games. This was meant as a way to make use of their existing knowledge of other games, for them to compare the experience of “The Testing Bureau” to. A small number of testers did not generally play video games to a large extent and provided some insights into how the game might be received among more inexperienced players as well.

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In accordance with Fullerton, playtesting was conducted in three variations: self-testing, testing with confidants, and testing with people I do not know (2008). The descriptions below are all based on Fullerton (2008).

3.4.1.1 Self-testing

This type of testing means that I as a designer test the game myself. It allows for obvious issues of a prototype to be solved, and to explore a game’s fundamental concepts. Self-testing is throughout a project, but testing with others becomes more crucial as the game evolves.

3.4.1.2 Testing with confidants

Once a playable prototype exists, testing with friends and family can bring in new perspectives. Beginning with confidants can however be a good way to get “fresh eyes” on a project without yet having to locate and engage playtesters from outside of your network.

3.4.1.3 Testing with people I do not know:

To develop the game further, testing with strangers is crucial; a personal relationship can cause confidant playtesters to be “too harsh or too forgiving”, depending on how the interaction between me as a designer and them usually goes. People I do not know and that have no prior knowledge of the game can give honest feedback, seeing as they do not have a friendship to take into consideration when critiquing. “Outsiders have nothing to lose or gain by telling you honestly how you feel” (Fullerton, 2008, p. 251).

Playtests were conducted throughout the development of the game. All in all, 15 tests were conducted, out which 4 were with people I did not know beforehand.

3.4.2 Playtest set-up

All tests were set up as one-on-one sessions. Depending on the prototype(s) tested, the length of the tests varied, but all stayed under an hour. Most playtests were around 35 minutes. The main format was informed by Fullerton’s chapter on playtesting in “A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games” (2008). 12 out of 15 playtests in this project consisted of three phases: a short introduction, the testers trying the prototype(s), and an open discussion where playtesters were free to share their thoughts and experiences. The open discussion was guided with certain questions from me if needed - similar to that of semi-structured interviews (Kvale, 2011). Except for one, all of these playtests were conducted over the internet with an ongoing video chat if the playtester had access to a web camera and felt comfortable with a video chat, or, if that was not the case, a voice chat.

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3.4.2.1 Introduction and short warm-up discussion

All testers were informed of the nature of the project and ensured that nothing was being recorded. Testers were asked if they play video games otherwise, what kind, and if they had any previous experience with text-based games. This acted as both a warm-up discussion to hopefully loosen up a possibly nervous designer and playtester, as well as providing valuable information for me when analyzing the testers reactions to my prototype.

3.4.2.2 Testing the game

Playtesters were asked to share their screen, allowing me to see what they were clicking on in the game, and what they might be reacting to. Using video allowed me to observe facial expressions, giving more clues as to how the testers perceived the game experience.

The testers were encouraged to share thoughts and feelings as they appeared while playing, as well as also being informed that a discussion would follow as to not stress the testers into having cover everything at once while testing the prototype.

3.4.2.3 Open discussion

To guide the post-game discussion, some pre-defined questions were used. The playtests were all conducted in Swedish, but the questions have here been translated to English. The set of questions have been inspired by the highly useful list of example playtest questions by Fullerton (2008).

- What were your first impressions?

- Was there anything you experienced as confusing? What, and why?

- Was there anything you experienced as frustrating? What, and why?

- Were there any particular aspects of the game you appreciated? Why?

- How did you experience the story?

- What do you think could be improved in the game?

Certain test-specific questions were sometimes asked, relating to for example speed of text presentation, positioning of text, and color and font choices. The three playtests that did not use this format were with three interaction design students and in a more informal style. The testers were sent the prototype link, played it on their own, and sent back written feedback, without particular questions to steer their answer.

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4 Design Process

Coming from the theoretical context of the project, I will now move towards the practical work of the thesis. This chapter presents the design process leading up to the final design suggestion of “The Testing Bureau”.

Before this, a clarification is needed on the screenshots from “The Testing Bureau” prototypes presented in this chapter: in most cases, a frame that is not part of the original prototype has been added around the screenshot for the sake of easier separation of the thesis text and the prototypes. In some images however, a frame is part of the prototype - in which case it will be clearly stated.

4.1 Finding a beginning

This project started with the broad intention of looking into climate change and speculative design. Initially, I was interested in creating a prototype - tangible or digital - from a speculated future, as a way to spur reflection on the future(s) with climate change. Early desk research included investigating existing climate-focused speculative design work as well as scientific papers, news articles and blog posts on climate change and the future, circular economy, post-capitalistic design and more. The initial research led to my learning of the shared socioeconomic pathways - the SSPs. The narratives of the SSPs were especially suitable for the goal of creating something related to the future(s) with climate change, as they offered relatively short and easy-to-read descriptions of the five future scenarios. Broadly, they relate to the topic of how certain socioeconomic and political developments might cause high or low challenges to adaptation and mitigation of climate change. The SSPs are primarily meant to be used by research and assessment communities, but they offer knowledge and can act as a source of reflection outside of the research community as well. From this, I narrowed my scope: my initial research question became that of how the SSPs could be made available (in another form than text in a scientific paper) outside of the scientific sphere.

4.2 First ideas

After studying the SSPs from a theoretical perspective, ideating brought forth three main ideas. These were all explored further through sketching before deciding on a specific idea. Figure 7 shows an example of the sketches produced for the exhibition idea.

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Figure 7: Quick hand-drawn sketches provided a chance to explore ideas.

1. An exhibition with several speculative design artefacts from the different SSP futures.

The theme of such an exhibition could be the comparison of everyday objects from today, and the “same” one from different SSP futures - for example a phone. In a dystopian future with poor air quality, wearing gas masks outdoors might have become the nor. Perhaps a natural step would be for those gas masks to have a built-in phone with functions we associate with phones today; music streaming services, games and access to the internet, as well as communicating with friends and family. In another version of the future, indoor plants infused with technology might act as a communication device - “talking to your plants” would hold a new meaning.

2. Creating “newspapers from the future”.

What would count as news in different SSPs, and how would the news be spread and consumed by people living in these different futures? I explored this idea mainly by creating possible headlines based on the SSP narratives, and sketching. In one future perhaps “the news” are available in digital form in public news stations around the city, as a response to a heavy limit on private consumption of electronics?

3. A game that might allow players to experience one or several SSPs. This could be analogue or digital and for example let the player take the role of someone living in a specific SSP society. Or perhaps the game can place the player in a deciding position and let their decisions lead to a specific SSP-inspired future?

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4.3 Motivating a choice

All three ideas aligned well with the goal of making the SSPs available for people outside of the climate research sphere, and in another form than a scientific paper. However, exploring the third idea – the game – awoke a new question: how is climate change represented in such a widely used medium as video games today? And how might the stories we are told about the climate crisis affect our understanding of it? Before deciding fully on one idea, further desk research into the topic was conducted. This introduced me to climate fiction, the general absence of video games in the genre, and how climate fiction often makes use of science in its stories. Creating a game making use of the SSP’s aligned with my original research question, as well as contributing to countering the small amount of climate fiction games.The occurrence of the corona pandemic coming to Europe and Sweden around this time further motivated the choice of making a game, seeing as it more easily could be done in digital form and be tested without requiring physical meetings.

4.3.1

Making it text-based

Making a climate fiction video game can be done in various ways. With “The Testing Bureau”, I specifically set out to create one in the form of interactive

fiction – i.e. making it a text-based game - as a way to connect to the literary

genre of climate fiction. I saw it as an interesting creative challenge to use text as the main form of interaction for the game: how could text and different presentations of it be used to tell a story in an interactive medium such as video games? The choice is probably also influenced to some extent by a personal interest: having a background in theatre, text as a material holds a certain appeal.

4.4 Exploring IF as a material

To familiarize myself with my chosen medium of text-based games, I played a number of already existing IF games. I deliberately tried games of different styles and themes, such as the games mentioned in the “Related works” section. Playing these games allowed me to explore concepts such as different aesthetics in text-based games, how the use of simple graphics and/or text communicate the story, and to experience parser-based, hypertext and choice-based games in practice. Some key insights were:

• Using graphics can be a useful tool to create a sense of being immersed in the world of the story and communicate the story as a complement to the text (like in “Coming out Simulator”). At the same time, it is not required for an interesting game experience (like in “Choice of Robots” that has received 96% positive reviews on Steam (digital video game distribution service), from around 1700 reviews).

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• I experience that I as a player take on a more passive role in hypertext games, comparing to parser- and choice-based.

• Parser-based games allows for more exploration in some sense through its not-so-obvious available actions, but also feel more limiting than other versions for an inexperienced player.

• Choice-based IF seems better than hypertext at enabling a more life-like dialogue between player and game or characters in the game. Having a “dialogue” with a parser would probably be a challenge, since the parser has to able to recognize and understand what the character thinks of typing, if the illusion of a “real” dialogue should remain intact. A parser’s “I don’t understand that verb” or similar is generally not a preferred response in a dialogue.

The exploration gave valuable insights as to how a text-based game could function, look and feel. It also played a part in the decision of making “The Testing Bureau” a choice-based IF due to it being playable “directly” - in oppose to a parser-based game - for an inexperienced player.

4.5 Developing the story of the game

Early ideas of the game’s story consisted of two main concepts: to play as a person “in” one of the SSP futures, or that you in the game get to experience the path towards an SSP. In both alternatives one could play as a “regular person”, or as a leader figure whose decisions controlled the outcome of a society. The choice fell on the latter, as I wanted to create a game that built on the broad perspectives of the SSP narratives. These describe things such as degree of international cooperation, economic conditions, and level of investments in health and education in each SSP. Having the player act as a kind of political leader deciding on such issues was a way of including the broad perspectives from the narratives, and more clearly make use of the SSP science in the game.

From here, the idea of “The Testing Bureau” emerged. As the player, you find yourself in the near future, at The Testing Bureau. Your task is to play through simulation(s), where you are to make certain decisions as if being a leader of a simulated country. Depending on the decisions you make, the simulated world would then “end up” in one of the SSPs. In the story, the data from all of the simulations run at The Bureau are collected and analyzed by an AI, upon which a report is sent to the UN, where they inform “real” world leaders about possible consequences of their actions.

This story developed gradually throughout the process of creating the game. While prototyping, a plot twist idea emerged; the Testing Bureau AI is, of

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course, actually the ruling the world – based on the data from the simulations.

4.6 Exploring text as a design material

Before deciding on what kind of interactive fiction game to create, I wanted to further explore text as a material, and different possible styles for the game. I created two quick prototypes with the same story as a base, but with different ways of interacting with the story and fictive office. The prototypes were created in Figma, a prototyping tool similar to that of Adobe XD, and also provided a way to explore the possibility of using this kind of software for developing the game.

4.6.1 Prototype 1: “Text-based point and click”

In this prototype (figure 8), the idea was to create a representation of a 3D space (in this case, an office) using only text instead of the regular graphics in point and click games. With “point and click” I refer to a kind of games where the interaction with a depicted environment happens through the clicking of certain objects in it.

Figure 8: Screenshot of the "text-based point and click" prototype.

Items that were “closer” to where the player’s character would be are written

in a larger size, while those further away would be smaller to indicate a

distance. This can be seen as an alternative visual style to hypertext interactive

fiction: it has text that upon clicking will reveal something more, but is here

presented without any surrounding description, and placed in a representation

of a 3D space. Here, the player sees the room as if standing in it, instead of

having it described to them.

Clicking on for example the word “desk” would trigger the option of sitting

down by it (figure 9), upon which (if clicking yes) the “room” will look

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different with the desk’s content available to interact with for the player

(figure 10):

Figure 9: Clicking on the word “desk” gives the option to sit down by it.

Figure 10: Sitting down by the desk in the game provides this view; items on the desk are now available to the player for interacting with.

In figure 10, the player is “sitting” by a desk with a blank paper, a tablet and

a pen on it. The desk drawer is also now available for exploration, and the

plant next to the desk is suddenly closer to the player now that the character

is sitting down, in comparison to earlier.

4.6.2 Prototype 2: A dialogue-centred approach

This prototype was written more in the style of a spoken dialogue between the

player and the game/characters in the game, more similar to classical

choice-based interactive fiction games.

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Figure 11: The first page of the dialogue-centered prototype.

In this prototype, when clicking “explore the future” (figure 11), short lines

of texts are presented (figure 12 and 13). These were lines to be interpreted as

being spoken by someone, and “heard” by the player’s character.

Figure 12: First line of text presented upon clicking "Explore the future!", that is shortly automatically followed by…

Figure 13: … another line of text, adding to the dialogue.

While hard to show in a static image, each row of text was presented in turn, to imitate a natural rhythm of speech. Creating this prototype gave a chance to dabble in the presentation of text to make it understood as a live dialogue. I could experiment with the length of the pause between each line of text being presented, as well as how fast each line, or sometimes separate words in the same line, appeared.

Figure

Figure 1: image from the Steam shop page of "Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm"
Figure 3: Screenshot from “Kyle is Famous”.
Figure 4: Screenshot from "Choice of Robots".
Figure 5: Screenshot from "Coming Out Simulator", taken by author while playing
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