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“Games can go into spaces where sometimes it’s hard to have these conversations,” say game designers Nathan Harrison and Mel Frances, as they unpack how gaming and scenario roleplay can help us reveal our inner climate priorities! Nathan and Mel break down key moments of their ‘Future for Beginners’ game with Climate Curious host, and game participant, Maryam Pasha. From high stakes Prisoners Dilemma challenges to short-term win vs long-term resilience decision making under pressure, we find out how playing through systemic controls can build empathy, reveal our own psychological blindspots, and provoke deep and existential discussions Recorded at TED 2026.
Enjoyed this short? Listen to the full conversation with climate game strategists Mel and Nathan: https://tedxlondon.com/podcasts/are-you-ready-to-lead-your-town-through-an-extreme-weather-event-with-the-game-designers-behind-the-future-for-beginners/
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Climate Curious intro
00:09 Meet the climate game
00:51 Fast decisions under pressure
01:42 Prisoners dilemma fallout
03:07 Why playful climate works
05:32 Tipping points and reflection
06:13 Short term vs long term
07:36 Empathy for decision makers
09:02 Uncertainty and preparedness
10:23 Wrap up and credits
Climate Curious intro
[00:00:00] Maryam Pasha: Welcome to Climate Curious Quickies, bite-sized nuggets of Climate. Goodness from our TEDx experts in under 10 minutes.
Meet the climate game
[00:00:09] Ben Hurst: What if the best way to understand the climate crisis was to play [00:00:15] a game? That’s what Game Designer Melroes and Theatre maker Nathan Harrison set out to do with the future for beginners an immersive climate solution.
[00:00:26] Ben Hurst: A far cry from Monopoly and snakes and ladders. The [00:00:30] future for beginner’s Game throws players into an unsettling scenario, testing you to think under pressure, and prioritise and unthinkable on why playing this board game might just prepare you for a job at the un. Here’s [00:00:45] Mel Francis and Nathan Harrison.
[00:00:47] Ben Hurst: Stay curious.
Fast decisions under pressure
[00:00:51] Mel Frances: No one’s won it in the way that you did on Monday. So I, I did wonder about what strategy has gone on there.
[00:00:56] Nathan Harrison: It’s a wonder that the Air Force don’t adopt that because that feels like the most
[00:00:59] Maryam Pasha: official [00:01:00] one. Everything, people just pile all the planes each other, but wasn’t, I would like to say that it was like.
[00:01:03] Maryam Pasha: Premeditated. It was not, it was that you were like 3, 2, 1. And I was like, throw them all.
[00:01:08] Mel Frances: Yeah. And I think speed is a really interesting component, right? Yes. Because there so many times you did this, used a couple of times in the game. So, um, [00:01:15] early on there’s a choice that you have to make very quickly. Yes.
[00:01:17] Mel Frances: And in terms of disaster response, you’re given. Know, 10 seconds to make decisions. And I think that this is also a really, um, sometimes again, when we can think about decisions at a distance, there’s this real sense of like, ah, when we get to sit, think through and reason [00:01:30] through and consider all of the different components.
[00:01:31] Mel Frances: Yes, yes, we might make one decision, but when we’re under time pressure and someone’s standing there being like, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Yeah. Slightly different decision gets made. Yeah. So I think that that’s a, that’s one of our tools, I guess as designers.
[00:01:41] Nathan Harrison: I think so.
Prisoners dilemma fallout
[00:01:42] Maryam Pasha: I mean, I, one of the situations you put us in [00:01:45] was classic prisoner’s dilemma.
[00:01:46] Mel Frances: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:47] Maryam Pasha: Um, where for those who don’t know, like if you, if everyone acts together, you do better, but if only some people act, then those people are like disadvantaged. Right. Yes. I had to say, I’ve always thought that if I was in a prisoner’s dilemma [00:02:00] situation, I would. Work for the collective good. I did not, and I convinced the entire table.
[00:02:07] Maryam Pasha: I was just like, guys, no one else is gonna vote for this. We’re not gonna be the fools to vote for this, so don’t do it. Or like, or like pay for it. Like put our our, [00:02:15] and we didn’t, and then we ended up with the most, but the crazy thing right from that, that really got me, and this is the psychology people, was it.
[00:02:23] Maryam Pasha: Later when I tried to go round and do some like regional diplomacy, people really hated me.
[00:02:29] Nathan Harrison: Yeah. [00:02:30] They remember, yeah.
[00:02:31] Maryam Pasha: They rem They were like, you did not contribute. You better give us stuff now. And, and that coupled with the fact that we like won that, that game to become like the leaders in the rare earth minerals.
[00:02:43] Maryam Pasha: And the fact that you had told us that [00:02:45] we were the most beautiful, fashionable region, people really did not like us by the end.
[00:02:54] Maryam Pasha: Um, okay. I like carry that persona all [00:03:00] week. By the way, just so you know,
[00:03:01] Mel Frances: we can just sit with you being from the most attractive, stylish
[00:03:03] Maryam Pasha: town for me if you want. Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Um, okay.
Why playful climate works
[00:03:07] Maryam Pasha: But the idea of this kind of gaming and immersive, uh, in interactive theatre is so powerful. As designers in it and as people who’ve, who’ve obviously seen so many people play this game.
[00:03:24] Maryam Pasha: What, what is the power of this do you feel for, for, um, being part of this climate [00:03:30] movement? Being like meeting this moment, we need to meet.
[00:03:32] Nathan Harrison: I mean, it’s, it’s a big question. I, I think one of the things is that games like this can go into spaces that sometimes it’s hard to have these conversations. Um, like this can sort of fit in like a boardroom [00:03:45] or, or you know, like lots of places that maybe people want to have the chat.
[00:03:48] Nathan Harrison: But it’s a bit hard to start that. And again, it’s a nice way to let people leave all their political baggage at the door and just. Play. Um, but I think a, a really important part of the game and, [00:04:00] and all the work we do, I think is, is like having a conversation afterwards. And the thing that the game can do is let you embody these ideas and really feel what it’s like to navigate these systems qualities, these trade offs, these tipping points that we’re all facing.
[00:04:13] Nathan Harrison: And then [00:04:15] afterwards have a really good conversation about it. Grounded in, in what it felt like to play and, and all the material is there and the story was there, and you can kind of then compare that to the real world. But there’s something really important about embodying that with a sense of [00:04:30] fun as well.
[00:04:30] Nathan Harrison: That it’s not harsh, it’s this is inviting, it’s playful. Yeah.
[00:04:35] Mel Frances: And I think it can, um, you create a shared experience right by, with all the people who are there. And there are these moments you tell a story together. So we have a story that we’re telling as facilitators, but this [00:04:45] whole other story emerges in the room and the dynamics between people and I think what you say about the, how we think we might behave and then how we actually behave in that space.
[00:04:54] Mel Frances: Is a really interesting thing to experience because suddenly you are like, oh, what is the reason I ended up [00:05:00] doing this thing rather than this thing? And I think it, it shows some of the gaps or some of the, it illuminates some of the challenges in a really useful way. Um, and I think that as well, um, yeah, as you often say, um, really well that like.
[00:05:12] Mel Frances: Sometimes the ga, the game is really about getting people into [00:05:15] the space to have a good conversation afterwards. But I think in that way, that is dialogic. It doesn’t, there isn’t a set of things that we want you to learn from the game. Yes, yes. So it’s not particularly di it’s not didactic in what it’s offering at all really, but it’s asking questions and it’s illuminating [00:05:30] dynamics and, um.
Tipping points and reflection
[00:05:32] Mel Frances: It’s not a game where kind of like you do see the impact of the things that you do. So as much as it’s not didactic, we are showing things or trying to show things as they are. So there is this moment where you see a tipping point, um, spoiler, but you see a tipping [00:05:45] point tip, and then you can have a conversation about.
[00:05:47] Mel Frances: What that felt like and what that is and where that came from. And I think that, um, yeah, we, we’ve just, after all of the games here, we’ve had these really great discussions about why did a thing work in this particular way? And then here are all the examples we’ve seen of [00:06:00] how that’s happened in the real world.
[00:06:01] Mel Frances: And I think, yeah, it’s a really great spark for shared reflection. And when people come from really different back backgrounds, context spaces, it can be a sh a point of, um, shared experience that can then spark discussion.
Short term vs long term
[00:06:13] Maryam Pasha: For me, the thing that [00:06:15] was really visceral was feeling the short term wins versus the long-term wins.
[00:06:21] Maryam Pasha: So feeling that, yeah, we did this thing, we built this road, we like have this great thing happening and then. And like, and like, oh yeah, in the [00:06:30] background we’re investing in these like long-term things and we dunno what’s gonna happen. And then all of a sudden you have like the extreme weather events, you have the other things and it just comes in and derails everything.
[00:06:39] Maryam Pasha: And I just made me further reflect on how, why it’s [00:06:45] so easy for us to focus on the short-term things that feel good. And not the long-term things, but then those long-term things are the things that give us the, the resilience, the real protective. Yeah. You know, it was the. We had someone who worked [00:07:00] in humanitarian assistance on the table, and you know, she, she went on and on and she, not on and on, but she, she was the only one who brought up like the, the kind of evacuation centres or the education programmes.
[00:07:10] Maryam Pasha: And I kept being like, this is just a waste of money. Like, in my head I was like, we should not be [00:07:15] spending on this. And then. At one point, again, it became very obvious that we needed to be. I thought, wow. It’s, anyway, I just, this is why I love games like this is because actually what it does is, is that it, it really shows you what you actually [00:07:30] think and what you might actually do in certain circumstances rather than what you as.
[00:07:33] Maryam Pasha: To, you know, and think,
[00:07:34] Nathan Harrison: I think as well. Sorry, just to jump on that.
[00:07:36] Maryam Pasha: Yes, please,
[00:07:36] please,
[00:07:36] Nathan Harrison: please, please.
Empathy for decision makers
[00:07:36] Nathan Harrison: Um, I think, not in the sense of letting us off the hook, but I think one of the things that I quite like that the game does is show that that’s, that it is hard. Yes. And like you want to do all these things.
[00:07:47] Nathan Harrison: Yes, yes, yes. For very good reasons and. And like it’s, it’s all good and well to be like, oh no, we actually need to do all these long term things, but if we don’t invest in the now and, and invest in people right now, yes. It’s like, what are we keeping resilient? Yeah. If, [00:08:00] if our communities are not even gonna make the distance to that long term.
[00:08:03] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. I thi I felt like I left with more empathy towards decision makers and. Also an insight into, if [00:08:15] we really want people to like, at like those levels of government make decisions, we have to make it really easy for them to see benefits, trade-offs, et cetera, et cetera. Like it has to like be a no brainer so that when they, when they’re pressed for time and they [00:08:30] have to make these decisions, it was just like, so I found that in the different solutions that we could invest in as a town, because as a.
[00:08:37] Maryam Pasha: Group of people. We had expertise in different things. Like we had, you know, Deisha, our curator on this podcast is like an expert in nature-based [00:08:45] solutions. So when we were looking at those, we were like, should we do this or this? And she was like, no, do this one, this one’s better. It was like, great, do it.
[00:08:52] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. If, if you, if you are not. If you don’t have that skillset as a decision maker, it’s our job, I think, in the [00:09:00] field to give that to them.
[00:09:01] Nathan Harrison: Yeah,
Uncertainty and preparedness
[00:09:02] Mel Frances: there’s a really interesting thing that happens as well where, you know, you see, you go, we go around at tables at the start and people are like, how many rounds are we gonna have?
[00:09:08] Mel Frances: Oh, and are we gonna get the cash wish? Like, and there is this. Sense of prediction, right? Yeah. Of kind of like, I wanna know, and you know, they’re [00:09:15] trying to kind of like gain the script. Yes. And game the game, the scenario. And I think what, yeah, they wanna win. They wanna win, they wanna win. Of course, you know, it’s a game.
[00:09:22] Mel Frances: People wanna win a again, winning is a collective thing, but that will hurt aside. But I think it, it does this interesting thing again, in the short term, long term. There’s [00:09:30] also an element of uncertainty, right? Yes. And one of the things I think the game illuminates is there are a couple of moments where things land.
[00:09:36] Mel Frances: Particularly in particular areas. And so there is a sense of like if you prepared in that scenario, if you had an evacuation centre, then you can weather that weather [00:09:45] event. Yes, yes, yes. In a different way to people who haven’t. And I think that the game also illuminates the way in which I think the difference between kind of, uh.
[00:09:52] Mel Frances: Proactive and reactive. Yes. Re responses to weather events and how so often we end up having to be reactive because we don’t ha, we’re not doing any of the [00:10:00] proactive work. But then if you put that proactive stuff in earlier, it costs you so much less than if you have to marshal like a huge disaster response.
[00:10:07] Nathan Harrison: People always say afterwards like, oh, if we had known the storm was gonna hit out town, we would’ve built this. Like, yeah, that’s the world we live in.
[00:10:14] Maryam Pasha: No, but it is, there’s [00:10:15] no do overs. Yeah, in the game. That’s the thing is, is it’s not like being like, oh, okay, well, we didn’t prepare for this storm, so we’ll prepare for the next one because the next one may never come.
Wrap up and credits
[00:10:23] Ben Hurst: Thanks for listening to this quickie.
[00:10:25] Maryam Pasha: This episode was created by our superstar podcast team at TEDxLondon. [00:10:30] Until next time,
[00:10:30] Ben Hurst: stay curious.
