Social Simulation Game on a Graph / Network
The "Problem"
Starting from the idea of a cellular automaton (consider for example Conway's Game of Life) we investigated how such a simple structure - considered as a group of agents - could be rendered as a playable simulation of social dynamics. Specifically, we ended up simulating the behaviour of people and ideas at a research retreat similar to the one at Darwin Lake, to investigate how groups form and evolve, and ideas are discussed, spread and refined.
What we did
We considered the NetLogo simulation software, and designed agents that (1) represented ideas, and the evolution of each idea; (2) represented research participants at the retreat; and (3) modelled the conversations of participants in a way that allowed for the capture of changes and refinements to an abstract idea.
I think our primary innovation was from (3) where, through ethnomethodological analysis of the way that we discussed the ideas behind this project, we found a transactional model of conversation.
Hence it was meta, man.
The "Outcome"
We didn't get past paper prototypes and deep discussions. The idea might be taken further - but we ran out of time to do that.