Future Games

Games and futures work have a long history together. Some are purpose-built tools for scenario workshops, others are commercial board games that happen to deal with futures themes, and a few blur the line between the two. What they share is the ability to make abstract futures tangible through play.

This list grew out of a crowdsourced thread in the German foresight community (March 2026). Oliver Lauenstein kicked it off by asking for foresight games beyond the usual suspects and ended up collecting over 170 entries. His observation: most dedicated foresight games are really scenario-storytelling prompts dressed up as games. They work well in workshops but are not what you would bring to a game night. Unless you add house rules.

Oliver maintains a comprehensive spreadsheet with the full collection. What follows is a curated selection.

Card Decks & Toolkits

The largest category by far. Card decks have become the default format for foresight games because they are cheap to produce, easy to adapt, and work in almost any workshop setting.

Scenario & Imagination

• The Thing from the Future – Stuart Candy & Jeff Watson (Situation Lab). Card game for imagining future artifacts. One of the most widely used futures games. Free print-and-play
• Scenona Cards – Felix Wieduwilt & Friederike Riemer. Scenario development through combinatorial cards
• Afro-Rithms From The Future – Lonny J. Avi Brooks, Ahmed Best, Joshua Kosminsky + IFTF. Afrofuturist oracle deck for speculative storytelling
• Dreams and Disruptions – Center for Engaged Foresight (Shermon Cruz, Shiela Castillo). Tabletop scenario game
• How to Future Cards – Changeist (Scott Smith). Companion deck to the book How to Future
• Futures Bazaar Toolkit – Situation Lab & BBC. Adapted from The Thing from the Future
• Nesta Cards for the Future – Nesta (with John Sweeney & Jose Ramos). Adapted from Situation Lab
• IFRC Solferino Academy Edition – IFRC. Humanitarian futures adaptation of the Situation Lab format
• FutureCast – UN Global Pulse. Futures cards for policy exploration
• Peek – Evan Raskob (Goldsmiths / RCA). Cards for future storytelling
• Building Utopia Deck – Afrofuturist design collective
• Fictionation – Naz Borekci. Design fiction card deck

Trend & Signal Cards

• Scenario Exploration System (SES) – EU Policy Lab / JRC. One of the most institutionally adopted foresight card games
• Natural Foresight Tool Deck – TFSX / The Futures School (Frank Spencer, Yvette Montero Salvatico)
• IMPACT: A Foresight Game – Policy Horizons Canada (with Idea Couture). Out of print but influential
• Singapore CSF Future Deck – Centre for Strategic Futures, Singapore Government
• Sitra Megatrend Cards – Sitra (Finnish Innovation Fund). Also available as digital version
• UK Government Trend Deck – UK Government Office for Science
• Hyper Island Future Scenario Cards – Hyper Island (Sweden)
• Foresight Cards - STEEP Edition – IVTO (Institute for Tomorrow, Netherlands)
• Bavarian Foresight Institute Scenario Cards – Bavarian Foresight Institute + armasuisse
• Futures Platform Trend Cards – Futures Platform (Finland)
• Triggers Cards – Alejandro Masferrer

Ethics & Values

• Tarot Cards of Tech – Artefact Group. Reflection prompts on technology’s societal impact
• Ethical Explorer Pack – Omidyar Network / Artefact Group
• AI Ethics Cards – ACM CHI researchers (2024). AI ethics in design
• TechEthos Game – Ethics and technology futures. Published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
• Envisioning Cards – Batya Friedman & David Hendry (University of Washington). Value-sensitive design

Tarot & Speculative

• Instant Archetypes – Superflux (Anab Jain, Jon Ardern) with Paul Graham Raven. Tarot for the new normal. Out of print
• Synbio Tarot Cards – Superflux. Synthetic biology futures through tarot
• Futures of Media Tarot – Johannes Klingebiel. Media futures through tarot cards
• New Metaphors – Imaginaries Lab / Dan Lockton. Cards for reframing through metaphor
• Solarpunk Futures – Optimistic futures card deck
• More&More Futures – Marina Zurkow & Sarah Rothberg. Speculative futures cards
• Oblique Strategies – Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt (1975). The original lateral-thinking card deck, which inspired many futures card games that followed

Design Fiction

• The Work Kit of Design Fiction – Near Future Laboratory (Julian Bleecker, Nicolas Nova). Free online edition
• Strategic Sci-Fi Master Deck – Dre Labre. Science fiction as strategic foresight tool
• The Collaborative Worldbuilding Deck – The Worldbuilding Workshop

Domain-Specific

• IMPACT: Forestry Edition – US Forest Service (USDA). Foresight for forest management
• Achieving Biodiversity Restoration – Arup. Biodiversity futures
• Urban Futures Hong Kong Cards – Arup Foresight + University of Hong Kong
• Flaws of the Smart City – Design Friction (Nantes). Critical perspectives on smart cities
• WorkAI Toolkit – HCI researchers. AI and the future of work
• Sitra Cards of Hope – Sitra. Ecological transition through hope
• RAND Climate Hazard Card Game – RAND Corporation. Climate futures for South Asia

Workshop & Facilitation Games

Games designed to be facilitated in group settings, from quick positioning exercises to full-day simulations.

• Polak Game – Peter Hayward & Stuart Candy. Positioning exercise based on Fred Polak‘s optimism/agency axes
• CLA Game – Participatory method based on Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)
• The Sarkar Game (JFS article) – Sohail Inayatullah. Role-playing exercise exploring cycles of social power
• Three Horizons Kit – International Futures Forum. Mapping present, transition, and future systems
• ÜBERmorgen – German-language futures board game
• Akteure 4.0 – Schaltzeit Verlag. Time-travel narrative game about saving a factory
• 2030 SDGs Game – Imacocollabo (Japan). Tabletop simulation for Sustainable Development Goals
• Living Futures: Scenario Kit – Danish Design Centre. Scenario exploration toolkit
• Time Machine – Matthew Manos. Strategic foresight toolkit. Pay what you want
• Hedgemony – RAND Corporation. Board game about strategic choices and geopolitics
• Navigating the Great Transition – Tamas Gaspar, Fabienne Goux-Baudiment, Peter Hayward. Tabletop game. JFS article
• Polycrisis Game – Fabienne Goux-Baudiment & Christopher Cordey. Explores interconnected global crises
• ITT Game – Doris Viljoen, Institute for Futures Research, Stellenbosch Business School
• Futures Literacy Deckbuilder – Martyn Richards, Finland Futures Research Centre. Co-designing futures literacy games in workshops
• Horizon Hexplorer – Martyn Richards. Miro template for futures exploration
• The Future Is Ours – Save the Children & SOIF. Strategic foresight toolkit for participatory work
• Future Box (Zukunftsbox) – Futurium Berlin. Scenario-based card game used in schools through the mobile Futurium program. Shop
• NUM2050 – Nordic Innovation. Nordic urban futures game
• Zukunftskids – Futures thinking for children

Digital Games & Simulations

From browser-based interactive fiction to full-scale online simulations, these games use digital formats to explore futures at different scales.

• Survive the Century – Sam Beckbessinger, Simon Nicholson, Christopher Trisos. Interactive fiction where your choices shape the 21st century
• EVOKE – Jane McGonigal / World Bank Institute. Online game for social innovation
• Superstruct – IFTF / Jane McGonigal (2008). Massively multiplayer forecasting game
• Foresight Engine – IFTF. Digital platform for collaborative foresight
• Avenir 20xx – Orange / Philippe Michel. Online futures exploration
• Future Mobility Simulator – Futurium Berlin / IMAGINARY (based on MIT CityScope)
• Water 2050 – Totem Games / Water Environment Federation. Sustainable water use
• World Game – Buckminster Fuller (1964). The original cooperative global simulation
• World Peace Game – John Hunter. Classroom simulation exploring geopolitics and diplomacy

Historical

Early examples that shaped how games and futures thinking came together.

• Future: A Game of Strategy, Influence and Chance – Theodore Gordon & Olaf Helmer / Kaiser Aluminum (1966). One of the earliest purpose-built futures games, designed by two RAND researchers
• Kriegsspiel – Prussian military (1812). Widely considered the ancestor of modern wargaming and serious games
• Wargames – RAND, NATO, DoD. Military scenario planning through structured gameplay

Board & Video Games with Futures Themes

Commercial games that deal with futures-adjacent themes. They can be useful for inspiration or just for fun.

• e-Mission / Daybreak – Matt Leacock (creator of Pandemic). Cooperative climate strategy game
• Neom – City-building game set in the future
• Terraforming Mars – Engine-building game about making Mars habitable
• Chrononauts – Looney Labs. Time travel card game
• Pandemic – Matt Leacock. Cooperative disease-fighting game
• Risk 2210 A.D. – Futuristic take on the classic strategy game
• Cyberpunk 2077 – CD Projekt Red. Open-world RPG exploring near-future dystopia
• Detroit: Become Human – Quantic Dream. Narrative game about AI consciousness
• Disco Elysium – ZA/UM. RPG about ideology, memory, and societal collapse
• Horizon Zero Dawn / Forbidden West – Guerrilla Games. Post-apocalyptic open-world series set in a future where machines have replaced human civilization

People & Resources

Researchers, designers, and organizations working at the intersection of games and futures.

• Juliane Jarke – Socio-Digital Futures, Uni Graz. Researches foresight games, organized a symposium on the topic
• Martyn Richards – Finland Futures Research Centre. Expertise in futures games design and futures literacy
• Randy Lubin – Leveraged Play. Prolific game designer behind Imagining Health Futures, Money City, Hindsight 2030, Foresight Shopping Network, and others
• Jane McGonigal – IFTF. Designed EVOKE, Superstruct, and Foresight Engine. Author of Imaginable
• Journal of Futures Studies – Special issue on gaming, plus individual articles on games and futures (Open Access)
• 4CF – Polish futures consultancy developing gamebooks and narrative scenario games
• Near Future Laboratory – Julian Bleecker, Nicolas Nova. Pioneers of design fiction tools
• IFTF – Institute for the Future. Has produced dozens of foresight games and toolkits over the decades
• Foresight Games List – Comprehensive directory of foresight games
• Oliver Lauenstein’s Spreadsheet – 170+ games, continuously updated