Episod Studio
Project Name: Race for the Arctic
Twitter: @EpisodStudio
We met on the MA Information Experience Design program at the Royal College of Art. Our backgrounds are diverse, hailing from six different countries and with previous specialisms from UX, to sound design, to philosophy. We were brought together by our shared vision for telling meaningful, transformative stories. And, of course, our love for games.
After working together on a VR game commission from the V&A Museum of Childhood in summer 2019, we founded the first games club at the RCA to explore new modes of interactive storytelling. The result of this collaboration is ‘Race for the Arctic’. We have since developed a strong concept for the game and hope the mentorship from Tranzfuser will help us professionalise our collaboration, build a prototype that does justice to the importance of the story we wish to tell, and begin a journey to create a sustainable indie games studio.
About the project
The Arctic has been described as the “last white dot on the map”. But it is beginning to be coloured in. As the world heats up, the Arctic ice melts into sea, creating new shipping routes, economic opportunities and, inevitably, conflict.
‘Race for the Arctic’ tells the story of this near-future reality, blending narrative documentary with race-mechanics. As the fictional Freight family, players race to become a leader in Arctic shipping. Each lap depicts a different epoch of climate catastrophe with a new generation of the family at the helm.
This ever-changing gameworld is built on data models and expert hypotheses about the future environment and geopolitics of the Arctic. The result is a full-immersion into climate catastrophe at the world’s final frontier, glimpsing at the actors who seek to benefit from it.
‘Race for the Arctic’ will be released for PC in early 2022, and promoted at documentary festivals.