Collaboration at Crucible London 2024

Playing with Time in the Climate Crisis: Gaming the Future

Susannah Fisher is a Round 6 Future Leaders Fellow (FLF) based at University College London. Her FLF project is titled “Urgency with inclusion in global climate finance: why measurement matters.”

Susannah participated in Crucible London in 2023 to connect with and draw inspiration from other FLFs. During one session, participants were tasked with brainstorming how their respective disciplines could address shared problems. It was here that she met Peter Bray (Round 6 FLF from The University of Reading, discipline: Archaeology) and Panagiotis Papadopoulos (Round 2 FLF from The University of Manchester, discipline: Electrical Engineering).

Through these conversations, the group discovered a shared interest in exploring how their work addressed different dimensions of time. Peter brought an archaeological perspective focused on the past, Susannah examined the politics of the present, and Panagiotis contributed insights from his work related to the security of electricity networks.

Susannah’s pre-existing relationship with a games company and her engagement with creative practitioners sparked the idea that their combined expertise could intersect to explore the climate crisis through the lens of gaming.

The Project: “Playing with Time in the Climate Crisis: Gaming the Future”

After Crucible London, Susannah, Peter and Panagiotis applied for and were awarded Pump Prime funding for their project, titled “Playing with Time in the Climate Crisis: Gaming the Future.” The project began in January 2024.

With the funding, the group partnered with the games company Coney HQ and engaged online discovery sessions. These sessions helped the group better understand each other’s research and uncover commonalities that could be translated into a board game concept.

In May, following the discovery phase, the group convened in person for a full-day session. During this session, they played games with other researchers working in similar disciplines to understand how their findings could be incorporated into a game. The insights gained informed the prototyping phase, which was carried out by Chloe Mashiter and Tassos Stevens (Coney HQ) 

Game Development and Workshop

On November 15, Susannah’s group hosted a workshop titled “Exploring Time and the Climate Crisis: Invitation to a Game-Playing Workshop.” This event introduced FLFs to the prototype game and fostered discussions about the climate crisis from multiple disciplinary perspectives across different timescales. Insights from the session are now being used to refine the final version of the game.

Next Steps

The group is currently applying for Plus Fund support to complete the development and production of their resource—a trading and influencing-style board game. They aim to have it played by students and policymakers to spark meaningful discussions about the climate crisis and its complexities.