Instructions and Reflections on How to Play with Time: an Illustrated Story Around the Futuroscopio

Abstract

This contribution delves into the philosophy and design process behind Futuroscopio, a tabletop roleplay game aimed at recovering the players’ agency to transform their present. The article charts the multiple prototypes and insights gained along its iterative development across manifold scenarios. Upon assessment, Futuroscopio emerged as a tool fostering exploration, collaboration, and dialogue, adept at addressing weighty subjects while maintaining players’ engagement. Aligned with Farnè’s Pedagogy of Play, this experience embodies the two fundamental states of education: a spontaneous immersion in natural chaos and a structured reflective process that leads players to learn what they need at their own pace. The conclusions point into an unexplored territory, where play is not limited to basic education, but entails an open attitude for discovery across multiple professional fields, therefore transversal to disciplinary thinking; where games act as provocations to imagine alternative scenarios and transform our present into better possible places.

Keywords

• Game design
• Game-based learning
• Speculative futures
• Play pedagogy