Research Through Game Design. Interactive Stories from a Submerged Amsterdam

Abstract

Deciding what kind of smart cities do we, as a society, want is not only a political question but also a matter of envisioning possible futures. The speculative narratives that designers produce to support their imagination are called "Design Fictions." We share SUBMERGED, a cross-platform project that combines game design, interactive narrative, and urban exploration with the objective of empowering citizens to produce their design fictions. Following a "Research through Design" practice, we describe our process for creating SUBMERGED, we synthesize some critical insights from our expe- rience, and we urgently call for a dialogue between semioticians and design resear- chers on these topics.

Keywords

• gamification
• design research
• game design
• pervasive game
• interactive narrative
• design fiction