Present from the Future: A Learning Game about Speculative Design and Optimism

On April 2nd, at the invitation of UNIFESO - Centro Universitário Serra dos órg?os, I attended the Congress of Tomorrow, an event promoted by the Secretary of Science and Technology of Maricá. There, I had the opportunity to lead 3 in-person sessions of my learning game, "Present from the Future", including on the main stage of the event, for more than 100 people. For a while, many people have been asking me about the game, what it is, and why I created it. Let’s get into the explanation.

To understand it, let's go back to the already distant year of 2020, the year when "the world ended". At the beginning of that year, around April, and with the COVID-19 pandemic happening, a group of board game developers that I coordinated in Rio de Janeiro launched a "challenge," where we had to develop "print and play" games so we could have activities to do with the family during isolation.

One afternoon at the end of that week, I started thinking about what kind of game I wanted to create. I remembered that I had recently read the article by Masaki Iwabuchi (https://uxplanet.org/redefining-the-word-design-676d7a874281) about the different methods and approaches to design; I also remembered that I had done some speculative design projects and artifacts from the futures in my master's degree a couple of years ago. I was also inspired by reading the Futures Thinking Playbook from Teach the Future, proposing playful activities and games to teach futurism to children. Then I thought, "Let me see if I understood the concepts, creating a game about it."

Two hours later, I had the first version of Present from the Future, whose name has a double meaning: the word "present" here is at the same time a "gift" or “something that is given to someone to congratulate, reciprocate, please”, and also a temporal horizon, meaning “that exists or happens in the time or period spoken of; current." With the layout of the cards and the rules ready, I proceeded to test with my kids, my eternal official playtesters. They had a lot of fun, and I saw that they quickly understood the proposal of the game, and that some of the concepts were somewhat superficial. Then my educator's perspective came in: "I think this game can be part of a practical workshop to teach Future Studies and Speculative Design."

In the middle of the year, I was conducting a test of the Present of the Future workshop with former students of NAVE from Oi Futuro , an educational project I had the privilege to coordinate. Everyone was completely amazed with the contents and the dynamics of the game. That same month, I met Rosa Alegria , and I took an incredible course with her and Sabina Deweik on my birthday (June 23, unforgettable). During the course, my dedication was so great that we exchanged ideas after its completion, and she invited me to join TTF Brasil - Teach The Future .

By the end of that year, invited by Teach the Future international, I ran two sessions at the UNESCO Futures Summit, with people from all over the world! From there to here, my unpretentious little game has been a tool for facilitating innovation processes in companies, is regularly an activity on World Futures Day, and has opened some cool doors for me, such as being a judge for two consecutive years at the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners and also as an activity during the Innovation Week of Enap - National School of Public Administration along with Ludymila Pimenta, MSc. , Alessandra Tótoli , Allan Mendes and the wonderful people of Futures Platform .

And what is so special about this game? Simple, it teaches Speculative Design in the way I like and learned from the people at Near Future Laboratory and my dear friend J. Paul Neeley : understanding the future through everyday objects. Instead of going through the whole process of creating scenarios, it starts with a quick research of weak signals and, from them, proposes an optimistic statement of ONE future (preferable, probable, plausible or possible) from an artifact from the future. Or, as explicitly stated in the game: “In [PROMPT] years, we will solve the [PROBLEM], because a group of [PEOPLE] created a [PROJECT], explained here in [PERSPECTIVE]”.

Each player can place one of their cards in a "blank" slot or on top of another person's card. When everyone is satisfied with the sentence formed, they determine how much time they will have to develop the project in the selected perspective (from 5 to 30 minutes, or more). To produce the artifact (project), it's important to consider the type of person chosen, as this professional thinks in a certain way and uses specific tools. The longer the time frame (in years), the greater the possibility of "thinking outside the box", after all, the longer the time (as a rule) the greater the change.

After time is up, everyone shares their productions on how they solved the problem. Each player receives two votes to use however they wish, and choose which presented solution is the best. The only restriction is not to vote for their own idea! The winner is the person (or group of people) with the most voted solution. Some criteria to help in choosing:

• Prompt: The farther into the future, the more absurd or different the solution.
• Problem: Addresses specific aspects of the problem context in the solution.
• People: Think like the professionals and use their tools and methods.
• Project: How feasible the solution is with the chosen project type.
• Perspective: The type of representation was “real”, tangible, and of quality.

Liked the game? You can download the free version here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okkJxnHPnog81JvnejnLze6IZ8CriMl4/view?usp=sharing

It works as an excellent tool for innovation workshops for schools, companies, and the public sector, proven with numerous test rounds over its almost four years of existence. And soon, I'll bring news for those of you who have been asking how to buy the game! Follow D+1's social networks: https://linktr.ee/dmaisumoficial

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