Upcycled 2045
A near-future where upcycling is survival, told as a visual novel.
The question
How do you make people feel the circular economy instead of being lectured about it?
The problem / context
Sustainability is usually communicated as instruction - statistics, guilt, rules - which people tune out. The circular economy is a way of living, but it's almost always argued rather than experienced.
The outcome / reflection
A visual novel set in 2045, where upcycling isn't a virtue but a baseline for getting by. By making the player live inside that world and make its choices, the project turns an abstract principle into something lived-in and felt.
// OVERVIEW
Upcycled 2045 uses interactive narrative to do what a poster can't: let someone inhabit a future shaped by the decisions we're avoiding now. It's the empathy-with-objects thesis extended into empathy with a whole material future.
// MAIN IDEA
Story as a simulator for values
A game lets you rehearse a worldview. By placing the player in a 2045 where reuse is survival, Upcycled 2045 makes circular thinking the natural logic of the world rather than a moral imposed on it - so the player adopts it the way you absorb the rules of any game you're enjoying.
// DESIGN PROCESS
Build the world
Write the branches
Design the visual language
// TECHNICAL DETAILS
Visual novel system
Narrative design
Art pipeline
// MAKING
Implementation
Built as a playable narrative experience, prioritising a coherent world and meaningful choices over spectacle.
// BACKGROUND
It came out of the realisation that the circular-economy work needed an emotional front door, not just material and technical ones.
// WHAT DID I LEARN?
People adopt values they get to live inside far more than values they're told.
Worldbuilding is the most persuasive form of argument a designer has.
Interactivity turns a theme into a personal stake.
// CREDITS
// WHAT’S NEXT
- Game design
- Narrative
- Circular economy
- Worldbuilding