Why Does the Game Exist?

Origin

The game was originally conceived of during a Stone Paper Scissors game design seminar, between myself - Nick Drage, and Terry Martin.

Flooding was related to the subject of that seminar, and - from a game design perspective - I find it interesting for several reasons:

• Just the importance of the subject and its affect on people.
• I don’t think it’s usually covered within serious games.
• Flooding illustrates how inter-connected resources and safeguards are, and flooding tends to impede or devastate severalof those simultaneously.
• Flooding is relatively preventable, at either small or large scales. Working through the consequences can help make the case for prevention.

Most importantly, I am not an expert in flooding, and I don’t think it’s possible to become an expert in flooding and all its consequences. That means that, as a subject, it might show how serious games can bring out the expertise of others.

Starting the conversation about financial requirements

A lot of people involved in the serious games industry highlight the lack of funding. Ever since discovering professional games by accident, twenty or so years ago, I’m continually amazed that games aren’t used far more widely in training and decision making. Part of running something on this scale is to see where there might be a working business model, or to have better informed conversations about why that’s not possible.

I have various accounts set up on services such as Patreon and Kofi, running this game can explore whether it could survive on donations, and what those donating to the running expenses of the game would expect in return. Also I can explore how those relatively small and informal funding methods fit alongside the image of a Limited company.

That links to sponsorship, which I think in the most viable financial model. But also presents the biggest problems, as any organisation committing finances is probably related to the area the game is covering, and will want to influence how it is portrayed in the game; or observers will have that perception anyway. I’m not sure how to navigate that issue, so part of running this game is working out how to do so.

History

This version of Water Water Everywhere is set in 2048 or 2049 ( until I get all my notes aligned ), players will take on the role of one of several groups involved in the aftermath of massive floods hitting East Anglia and the surrounding areas, representing a permanent change in the coastline of the country.

Water Water Everywhere was originally a game co-designed by myself and Terry Martin. After a couple of playtests Terry explained “What came across extremely clear is that we do not want to go into too much detail as this would take us down rabbit holes that move us away from the main purpose of the game.” But the “rabbit holes” are intriguing, they reveal interconnections about how society works and fails. I’ve pursued this larger idea, but look out for Terry’s “Floodgate”.

I’ve looked through the work of others, but professional games in the area are mainly localised “cope” games, and innovative problem solving/discussion formats for difficult problems aren’t adversarial enough. There isn’t a small game here…. unsurprisingly, Terry was right.

But something about this original idea is still intriguing to me, there’s something about playing the aftermath of this kind of event. I think it could work as a “Play by Email” game, with a simple and relatively automated resolution mechanism. This format would permit two central tenets of Serious Games/Wargames: “decisions and consequences, over and over”, and players having limited visibility of each others’ temprement, actions, intentions, and frustrations.