Speculative Games: Games Envisioning Possible Futures

Summarizing the findings of the Speculative Games Project, this paper presents an overview of the ways games tackle with possible futures and key principles for designing speculative games.The paper also summerizes earlier findings on how TRPGs may facilitate speculative play.The Speculative Games Project investigates speculative world-building and design in games, and how social, ethical, and philosophical implications of present-day scientific and technological discoveries, and social and environmental trends are projected in them.We identify speculative games broadly as games featuring plausible, fact-based, mid-and long-term speculative future scenarios.In this regard, while primarily focusing on extrapolations from current trends, we also evaluate visions emerging under conditions beyond contemporary relationships.