Playful Learning 2026 Programme

“TP Traveller” – a play test session

Lead Author: Janina Dewitz

Additional authors: TBA

Timetable: Thursday Session 8: 15:30-16:15, Gallery Room 1

Description:

Welcome, TP Traveller!
This is a game about teleportation. This is *not* a game about teleportation.

_Your friends have invited you for the weekend. You could take the train, but it would take you 5 hours and tickets aren’t cheap. Teleportation, on the other hand, would get you there almost instantly. – How will YOU be travelling?_

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“TP Traveller” is an immersive card game that transports players to a world where teleportation is not only possible, but increasingly pervasive. It is a classroom game designed to encourage players to consider the ethics of this new travel technology.

Each turn of the game places the player in a new everyday scenario and demands a decision of whether to use teleportation or take a more conventional means of travel. Although hyped as ‘the future’ of travel, teleportation carries all kinds of risks, and it is up to the player to decide whether to take the safe, but often cumbersome option or whether to risk it all for the convenience of almost instant travel. Each turn is accompanied by a news story that gives context and paints a vivid picture of the kind of world the players inhabit.

This game is the second of the GenAI and ethics games that we are developing at UCL. An early prototype of the other game, “AI Empire”, had a playtest at Playful Learning in 2024. While “AI Empire” focuses on the environmental impacts of data centres and AI technology, “TP Traveller” instead confronts players with the societal side effects of this new technology. Through daily news reports the players witness the technology’s impact on society at large: how does the technology affect the economy? What about personal relationships? The world of work? Health? What are the politics?

“TP Traveller” comes with a twist at the end of the game and a discussion activity that teleports the players firmly back to the present and encourages them to reflect on the current day societal impacts of GenAI.

References, web links and other resources:

We do not have a website yet, but hopefully will have something set up for the conference in July.