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Superstruct: The world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game
Forget what you typically expect from your average client-based MMO. In fact, the title you're going to read about here differs markedly from the type of game we normally cover at Massively, but that makes it no less interesting. Superstruct is truly something different -- a futuristic alternate reality game that launches today (October 6) and lasts only 6 weeks, developed by a team at The Institute for the Future (IFTF) -- a not-for-profit think tank based in Palo Alto, California. For lack of a better, and less inflammatory, description, Superstruct is a thinking person's MMO, and is in many respects a social experiment; the game is an attempt to harness the collective intelligence and problem-solving abilities of its playerbase to make forecasts about the world's future and its escalating problems. In fact, Superstruct bills itself as the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game, with the tagline: Play the game. Invent the future. Despite being set in 2019 and looking forward to world issues that will become crises 20 years beyond that, Superstruct's genre is more futurist than sci-fi. Superstruct doesn't feature the traditional game elements we've come to expect from a massively multiplayer title. Instead, it fosters new ways for players to work together, testing out their ideas and strategies in a creative, collaborative brainstorming experiment that spans different mediums. Plausible future scenarios will be posited to the player base, challenging them to really think and produce compelling responses to the events in the game.
How to play Superstruct
While dealing with these sweeping global issues would seem to be impossibly complex, Superstruct's gameplay -- fortunately-- is not. The game is comprised of a kind of storytelling on the part of its players, based off of the scenarios and updates presented by The Institute for the Future. Some of these scenarios, like the superthreat videos seen earlier, are there to establish the game's backdrop, but more info is on the way. Superstruct players will spin off their own ideas based on both the IFTF-provided scenario updates and (especially) player-generated content. In this respect, the gameplay is quite freeform. Playing the game breaks down to a few easy steps: Join the Superstruct community by registering at the official site. Create your 'future self' through your personal survival profile. Discover the superthreats (via the breaking news videos). Adopt a superthreat. Tell a superthreat story, through whatever medium you choose, via the Tell-a-Story form. Search for allies. Start superstructing on the wikis (sharing your ideas for redesigning the future.) Check out the video below and let one of the game's creators, Jane McGonigal, show you how the game is played, and be sure to note her tips on how to succeed in Superstruct.
