The event started on Wednesday evening, held at a bar in Beijing about a ten-minute walk from a tourist area. The nearby tourist streets were crowded, but the area around the bar was almost deserted.

There were only three people inside the bar. Bar culture itself does not really feel like part of Chinese culture, does it? I think it actually makes sense that a Chinese bar in a residential area would only have three people. The bar owner was a typical literary youth, very trendy, which probably fits my stereotype of Chinese people who like foreign things such as bars. The event organizers came from an environmental organization, and they had collaborated with another environmental group to create this board game. The gameplay was that everyone shared a common goal, but each player had a different position. You had to defend your own stance while also making sure everyone survived. The success or failure of different issues would cause some people to gain or lose points.

At the beginning, the few people who arrived early were all very polite. Everyone did a self-introduction. When I mentioned the term “speculative design,” no one knew what it meant.

Later, when the latecomers arrived, the game began. During the game, those who came early remained polite, but the latecomer was quite sharp. I am not sure if that was just his personality or something else. But from the perspective of my research, I would say he did not participate in the ice-breaking process, so he did not really care. I confronted him once and then did not want to again because he was too sharp. I did not want to appear weak. Of course, maybe I was also sharp, which made him feel he had to be even sharper. It was hard to find a balance.

Later, it was obvious that everyone’s sense of confrontation started to fade, and the game became a bit dull. Some of the topics in the game were rather unrealistic, and since the goal was to reach a yes-or-no conclusion, people had no passion for deep discussion. They just wanted to reach consensus quickly. But when the topics were more down-to-earth, people began showing off their knowledge. Although no one said it directly, I could clearly feel that some people had impressive friends and others had memorable experiences studying abroad. Maybe it felt good for them to mention those things.

The first round was actually fine because there was still some confrontation, although it was more intellectual. From Bourdieu’s perspective, that was social capital at play, something that could even be quantified. I wonder how Dunne and Raby would interpret this kind of confrontation, since they are not interested in grounded things. So how would it float? This kind of confrontation can actually last, but it is not floating at all. It belongs to the realm of cultural and philosophical combat. But as the game went on, everyone realized that someone was about to lose, and when one person failed, everyone would be affected, so people started helping each other. At that point, the pleasure of confrontation shifted to cooperation. But honestly, cooperation is just not as fun as confrontation.

Later, everyone realized that to win, confrontation was not needed at all. At that stage, I felt that no one cared about the game anymore. People just wanted it to end. We entered the bar at seven, and by nine everyone was already restless.

The game actually has a fatal flaw. I do not think the issue is confrontation or cooperation, but rather that the discussion time for each topic is far too short. Because the final goal is too clear, each topic, which could easily take three to five days to discuss, must be decided in three to five minutes. Even though there was no time limit, everyone just wanted to move things forward.

Still, the visual design of the game was excellent. I think most players would give it a good review out of respect for the concept and design. This reminded me of what Betti once said about not wasting too much time making experimental content overly polished. Of course, this game was a commercial project with an environmental theme, but it inspired me. Because of how well it was executed commercially, the surface excellence actually covered up the fundamental problems.

In the end, the experience was certainly not bad. The cards were beautiful, and at the very least, it was a polite social experience. But the game itself had many issues. The content was deep and rich, yet people still felt bored, which was worrying. What can keep participants continuously interested in thinking and playing? Emotion and addiction. At least one of them has to be there. Discussing a topic for three minutes cannot create emotional engagement. Sometimes, giving up a bit of personal interest to help others does not feel satisfying or exciting either.

Perhaps a game needs both emotion and addiction to coexist in order to truly work.