Perspectivity Game

During week 2, We discussed all about sustainability in the classroom! We then moved to the studio to play a game that surprised us all 😳

Gabriela gave us all a quick introduction to a new game that was called

The Perspectivity Game (https://www.theperspectivitychallenge.org/). We nodded our heads and pretended to understand the rules but little did we know that 10 rounds of this game would make us aware of the biggest world crises.

We were then split into groups of 2 each with 4 such pairs on each table playing against each other. The aim of the game was simple! Have the most credits when the game ends.

The end goal seemed simple but the mechanics of the game were difficult so try to

keep up 😊

- Each game is played for 10 rounds with teams of two each. Each team gets a board where they budget their credits per round. You get additional 3 credits per round.

- The game revolves around the premise of building factories. There’s two kinds of factories - sustainable ones and non sustainable ones.

- The game starts with each team getting one factory to start with and a few credits to build pathways and new factories.

- The dirty factories and sustainable factories generate the same amount of income however the sustainable ones cost more to build. One can convert a dirty factory into a sustainable one by paying a few extra credits.

- At the end of each round the mediator come around and totals up the score of the board which is based on the amount of unsustainable factories. Based on that score, a card(s) is drawn from the pile that affects each member playing the game!

- The card contains a catastrophic scenario like coral reef destruction, factories around a particular number being destroyed etc. which affects all the players in the game alike.

People adopted different strategies. Some wanted to hoard up dirty factories no matter what and some wanted to only build roads to connect and takeover others whereas some wanted to build only sustainable factories. Everyone wanted to capitalise and build more factories but no one wanted to chip in more credits to build sustainable factories since they make the same amount of money so why bother! In the end it’s about how many credits you’re left with in your hand. This in turn created a loop where after each round our board score would become dirtier and dirtier and we’d end up with more and more “catastrophe cards” and hell broke loose.

It wasn’t long before we realised the gist of the game isn’t in individual teams playing against each other but all of the teams playing in agreement to prevent environmental catastrophes. For instance somewhere around round 5 we realised that our “Dirty Factory” count was too high and we needed to keep a check on it so we all agreed to only build sustainable factories in that round and see how it works out. Sadly, one team didn’t cooperate and because the total number of dirty factories went up and hence the score, the cards drawn out from the pile ended up affecting each and everyone’s sustainable factories as well.

You see we all thought we were pitted against each other but the truth was that it was all of us against the climate change. That’s what the game teaches us in the end. To battle something as big as climate change we need a group effort. We all need to come together and put in the work. It’s like a pyramid, if one person fails to do his job then the whole structure crumbles and we all fall.

“ I loved that the game was complex yet simple and elegant with a great premise at the core. It shows how design thinking and games can be used to make people aware of the current situation and do what textbooks simply couldn’t. If you’ve made it this far in the blog then go get the game NOW!”