The Outbreak Game
Sometimes
we get the strangest ideas in the most unlikely moments and this was certainly
one of them.
The idea for “Outbreak!”, an interactive street game which brings
together film-makers, game designers and scientists came to me as I was
brushing my teeth, one cold grey winter morning. I had been playing in my head
with the idea of creating an event that could engage people of different ages
and backgrounds in an active way around the topic of public health, but until
that point I hadn't quite figured out how.
Then, all of a sudden, something
clicked and I rushed to my phone to call Jana, a friend who specialises, among
many other things, in games design. It didn’t take long to get her and Dr.
Joanne Pennock, immunologist from the University of Manchester, involved in the
project and before I knew it we were working towards the most unconventional
and bizarre science communication project I have ever been involved in.
At
the core of the game is the desire to target perhaps one of the biggest
misconception in science, the idea that science is either right or wrong, black
or white, correct or inexact. Anyone who has worked in a scientific environment
will know too well that things are never so clean cut and even though we so
often read in the media that “science says”, what that really means is “some
people have agreed on this interpretation of data”.
With
this game and interactive experience we want to highlight the difficulties in
science and how science crosses over with policy making, especially when time
and resources are limited, as in the case of dealing with an outbreak, where
making “right” interpretations and choices becomes increasingly more difficult.
By placing players in that awkward but interesting role of scientific advisors
to the Government, we want to force them to think on their feet, independently,
under a time pressure, wearing the labcoat of the scientist, the suit of the
politician and the skin of the citizen, having to realise there is no perfect
choice and that often compromises involve some losses, however much you might
want to avoid that.
By Greta, Outbreak
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