Sam Gentle.com

Rebuilding

I had a fun idea a while back for a kind of extreme real world game: get a bunch of people together with a fixed amount of time and try to recreate civilisation from nothing out in the wilderness. I call it rebuilding.

The difficulty of the game mainly depends on how you define civilisation and how you define nothing. I think it would be reasonable for beginners to start with a knife and comfortable clothes, but if you're hardcore you could start with nothing but a loincloth. It would be tempting to cheat by starting with specific things that are impractical to make, like steel or a microscope, but I think that defeats the point.

Instead, the right place to cheat is by careful definition of the word civilisation. For a first attempt I think you would pass by just setting up some kind of functional dwelling + basic agriculture. Then you could move on to more advanced goals like building a non-human-powered vehicle, launching something 100 metres into the air, or isolating penicillin.

A good goal would have a lot of creative ways to approach it. The vehicle doesn't have to use a traditional engine, maybe it could be wind powered or run off firewood. There are a few differnt mechanical and chemical ways to make something go high up in the air. Penicillin... yeah, that one's pretty tough. You would also want to set up lots of intermdiate goals as waypoints, partly to give you something to focus on on the way to the major goal, and partly so you have a string of other successes to look back on when you don't reach your chosen definition of civilisation. The game's meant to be hard, and I think it's fair if it takes a few attempts.

A big part of it would be very careful preparation. Having a plan, or even several plans, and having practiced some crucial skills early on would go a long way to making the task achievable. Picking the right location for the goal (or the right goal for the location, if there aren't many choices) would also be crucial. If something happens such that you need real-world tools or medical attention, that would qualify as "dying" in the game. Obviously you wouldn't want to have phones and cars around, so you'd need to have a plan for how to get someone out if something goes wrong.

Ultimately I think it's a game that's appealing as an exercise in realising how far we've come and getting in touch with some of the technological developments that we take for granted now. Being able to go back and, in some small way, relive the experience of being on the front line of civilisation would be an amazing thing to experience.