Creator's Statement

World Without Oil was a "what if" game – what if an oil crisis started on April 30, 2007? It simulated the first 32 weeks of this realistic oil crisis, by inviting people anywhere on the Internet to contribute their accounts of their life in the crisis to a "collective imagining." The idea was, "play it before you live it."

The innovative game approach created an online space for a documentary to write itself and a community to coalesce around that process. Collaboratively building the narrative not only created a vivid, immersive, multi-authored account of life in an oil crisis – it made the game experience life-changing for many of its players.

Creator's Statement

FutureCoast has an open, playful premise: what if voicemails are leaking out of our possible futures? They're fascinating to listen to, because each voicemail hints at what's (climate)changed and what life is like as a result. And these future visons build on each other as the game plays out, as the voicemails we hear on the site are made by the players themselves. As an eminently familiar and accessible form of storytelling, voicemails are an easy (and fun) on-ramp to imagining futures. Through the collaborative process of collecting authentic-sounding narratives, FutureCoast opens up an immersive, participatory path to futures thinking.

Creator's Statement

"What we know so far: two people are operating 'under the radar' in Balboa Park. They are investigating 'anomalies' – Pandora finds them with a detector and Drake decodes them. The two don't get along. Rather than meet, they communicate by voicemail – and to follow in their footsteps, you just call their number with your cellphone...

"Which is worthwhile, because the anomalies turn out to be 'ghost thoughts' from World War II. Drake and Pandora are chasing a riveting personal story... exploring the history and culture of the war years... and now, so can you."

Co-Creator's Statement

This collaborative thought experiment and "interactive documentary" used a unique provocation to crowdsource perspectives about education today. The Zed Omega teens, played by actors, "dropped out loud" from high school – frustrated with traditional education, they left to explore the alternatives.

The Zed Omega characters seemed real – the young actors channeled aspects of their real-life experience – and freed from real-life consequence, people could tell the Zed Omegas what they truly thought about education today. This authentic connection brought questions about school's purposes and methods out of the abstract into the immediate and real.

Co-Creator's Statement

Zorop is a game that reinvigorates community by fostering diverse and creative connections among strangers. A cadre of volunteer Zoropathians don bright scarves and head out into the streets, encouraging people who don't know each other to connect and discover hidden things they have in common. They then feed that information into a browsable 3D data visualization in the central hall. By relating social contact to the experience of public space, the participatory artwork illustrates how fostering simple connections can lead to meaningful social gains.

Gamemaster's Statement

Our mission: to make art that would bring Minneapolitans to feel a new reality: their water resources are being stressed. To that end: a game. At heart, Ruination's a mystery game, because mysteries encourage people to dig for knowledge. It's a team game, to encourage collaboration and collective action. It's played on (and off) bikes, so that players will directly experience the wide green spaces that are at risk. We structured the game to immerse players in artful moments – playful and fun, sobering and reflective, deep, enigmatic, light and social – because such moments open the player to empathy and personal transformation.