Harnessing the potential of simulation and speculative games for transdisciplinary collaboration: lessons from experience

Addressing societal challenges requires taking a systems perspective, and establishing a shared understanding and mutual learning. This includes not only learning and gaining a systemic understanding about a system’s complexity, but also of the perspectives and values involved in challenges to be addressed. In this study, ‘speculative games’, games that focus on hypothetical scenarios or experiencing the consequences of technological, social, or environmental changes, are proposed as extensions of simulation games as tools to explore perspectives and values. By reflecting on experiences of the design and use of three games, we provide preliminary insights into the benefits of both simulation and speculative games. We discuss how the speculative games, in contrast to the simulation game, use deliberately open-ended objectives and ambiguous in-game objects and materials to contribute to issue formation. We further discuss how, as a result, the speculative games establishes mutual learning through collective sense-making of the games’ ambiguous materials and reflecting on how these relate to real-world issues. In the simulation game, learning both about the system’s complexity and the perspectives of other players originates from experimenting, discussing and reflecting on actions taken in the game. Our experiences suggest that simulation and speculative games can be complementary tools in addressing societal challenges. As these type of games are not mutually exclusive, future research can focus on exploring the use of speculative elements in simulation games that aim to facilitate transdisciplinary collaborations and addressing societal challenges.