My Games Design

Lately, I've been doing a bit of thinking about Alternate Reality games . I was introduced to them last year but in the last few months I've heard about them at a conference (see previous entry for thoughts on ECGBL), watched two very different ones unfold, and been along to the Sandpit during the London Games festival . I've also been lucky enough to have had conversations about them with Justin Pickard and Juliette Culver , who have been involved with Superstruct and Operation Sleeper Cell respectively. Now Superstruct is similar to World Without Oil (and both are projects that Jane McGonigal has been helped create and run) in that it involves imagining yourself in an alternate reality crises - in this case it is 2019 and the combination of five different superthreats mean the end of the world as we know it by 2042. Players are encouraged to write their own stories about their experiences in this possible future, and to discuss possible superstruct solutions with each o