We had played Emilia and friend's version of the game a few times and came up with a few thoughts about new pieces (different fold out amounts, pieces for money, fuzzy felt, magnetic pieces, building blocks). I selected what would be the simplest I could manage in the timescale.I went through David MacKay's book, to work through numbers for the pieces. This was a very useful exercise to get myself acquainted with the numbers. This also assisted in making sheets that gave information about each technology. Hopefully this information should be making it's way onto the Serious Change website soon.
It was quite stressful getting it all together but with the help of friends and my very patient designer sister we got it done just in time (about 20 mins before the event started).Once we had actually got the formalities of the event out of the way I really enjoyed playing the game with my group.
There was a lot of discussion about the merits and security implications of overseas power. People were slightly blase about coating the country with wind turbines. Perhaps pictures of the country with an idea of scale would help. I also need to tie it down to specific areas where wind resource is possible as opposed to % of UK land area.
There should have been a better element of cost in the game (and including the HDVC lines into the CSP cost). I had abstracted the costs to make it easier to count up but I think some relation to every day life (as in the orginal) is more useful. There were also no costs associated with the demand side so it was essentially free to implement electric cars, heat pumps etc.It was nice having a wide game board to do multiple plans (or silly plans) and the magnets worked well. Having current demand printed on the backboard was useful as well. Having the pieces in blocks was useful because it was much easier to get started and change the plan around. My group did use the blocks, at one point, in a similar way to the old pieces, i.e. utilising just part of a piece.
The Tech sheets need to have more information on them. While I could quite easily answer questions because I had gone through all the numbers and I knew the assumptions that were made, I realise that that might have been harder for other Facilitators.
Assumptions about what was missing should have been available as well. I left a few technologies out because they were negligible in scale.
Facilitators should have had sheets to write down questions they are asked (and email addresses to send answers too and sign up to SC). Also to make general notes about how it went. There should also have been email sign up sheets for the tables.There wasn't really enough time for discussion so we couldn't address points that did occur (about bio-waste gas power etc). This was constrained by the entire event needing to fit into 2 hours. Ideally a good 2 or 3 hours discussion afterwards would have been useful for those really interested. I think the advantage of the short format is that you get over the main points of the game (scale, demand, technologies) in a short space of time which is vital.
I've made a note of some of the changes that people have suggested to the game pieces and hopefully in the New Year we'll all get together to discuss them.
I was very please with the turnout. I think it was about 40 people and about 12 of us. This made for a good group size around the 5 game boards.In general I think most people enjoyed the evening and got a lot out of it. The Dana Centre seemed very happy as the event was engaging and prompted a lot of discussion.
Afterwards a few of us went to the pub where I really needed a couple of beers.
A massive thank you for everyone who helped pull it together and all those who came to the event itself to help.
If you have any feedback on the game, want to hold your own energy game or know of a good place to hold one then email us at: contact@seriouschange.org.uk
