Cardigan St in Carlton to transform with futuristic climate action game Reworlding

Carlton’s Cardigan St will be closed for two days of “urban play” in October to step into the future of Reworlding – an immersive, street-wide event aimed at envisioning a new, sustainable community for Melbourne.

Game designers from RMIT Future Labs, in collaboration with Regen Melbourne, have created a blend of strategic gameplay and live-action roleplay as part of the immersive climate action game.

A theatrically transformed Cardigan St becomes a stage where players and performers collaborate to create a vision for the future, while navigating scenarios like extreme weather, resource scarcity, and AI governance, working together to develop creative solutions for urban regeneration.

The “solarpunk” setting explores Melbourne in the year 2050, which has grown into a sprawling megacity grappling with climate change, societal shifts, and evolving technologies.

Behind the event is RMIT University's director of Future Lab, Dr Troy Innocent, alongside his students from the Urban Play School.

“The core game concept itself is something that we've been developing since the first lockdown when the whole city reset after the bushfires and then the pandemic, and we began thinking through how we can figure out ways to adapt to change, but still live in the world at the same time,” Dr Innocent said.

That's why this particular game is being set in 2050 and looking at the challenges of what happens when Melbourne becomes a megacity.

Players have the unique opportunity to choose factions, each with unique abilities to influence the game's outcome. They must adapt and collaborate to manage resources, engage in negotiations, forge alliances, and make decisions that directly impact their community.

“We're building a future world where the play happens, and there are several non-player characters (NPCs) walking around, each representing different ideas about what this neighbourhood could become,” Dr Innocent said.

Future Play Lab students, ranging from master's degree candidates to PhD students, play a number of the characters in an effort to incorporate their knowledge into the gameplay.

“Over the last couple of years, we've built a community of like-minded people who are interested in experimenting with urban life, and they're playing a lot of the NPCs,” Dr Innocent said.

“This is really interesting because even though they're playing characters, they're drawing upon their research.”

Reworlding: Cardigan Commons is scheduled to take place on October 5 and 6, operating from 10am to 6pm each day.

It will be held during Melbourne International Games Week on Cardigan St as part of RMIT's City North Fest: A Shared Futures Series.