I am making three exquisite corpse games based on bioprospecting which are targeted towards three different audiences based on age groups/comprehension and literacy levels, and accessibility (i.e. own a computer). The
The first version can be played by children as young as 3 or 4.
It consists of truncated parts of biological creatures and plants (representing those harvested by pharmaceutical companies) as well as cultural artifacts/objects (representing the areas from which the bio-matter is harvested) which can be pieced together to form new assemblages. These assemblages can be analyzed to determine the origin of the elements, information about the bio organisms themselves (what they eat, other data), their individual compounds, their pharmaceutical use, as well as the outcome of their surrealist recipes by referring to accompanying material (flip booklet, booklet and online site.). This aspect of the game needs literacy (i.e. an older child/adult) or access to a computer (the digital version would include an audio version of the information with pictograms as input as well as a text-based version). However, the game can be played at the basic level of making the assemblages as well.
The second version is for older players.
It is a board game which uses dice to advance or retreat; action cards (you harvest 5 tons of snails, your expedition team is poisoned by the snakes you are gathering, the local population refuses you access, etc.); identity cards (you are a scientist, you are a snail, you are a local woman, you are an activist, you are the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, etc.); eternal force cards (major weather, politics, results of over-prospecting, uprising of bio organisms themselves, etc); collaboration (you can combine forces, materials, power, etc); and wild cards (you decide the action). The goal of the game is to reach the most desirable outcome based on your identity card. It is also accompanied by informational text in the form of both a booklet and online site.
The third is a digital version which allows the player to create assemblages by entering keywords which visually populate a series of boxes (or some other framework).
In addition ti the imaginary creature, the inputs automatically return information including 1. bio-organic compounds, existing or potential pharmaceutical development, application; 2. origins (location, maps), local demographics and culture, and impact of bioprospecting on that region/population; 3. the new surrealist recipe and both its actual outcomes as well as imaginary ones; 4…5…etc.
Leave a Reply