CSI Skill Tree: Mutazione

In the CSI Skill Tree series, we examine and celebrate how video games envision possible futures, build rich and thought-provoking worlds, and engage people as active participants in unfolding and interpreting stories.

In this event, we’ll discuss the 2019 mutant soap opera and magical gardening game Mutazione, developed by the Copenhagen-based studio Die Gute Fabrik and published by Akupara Games. We’ll discuss the game’s gentle, intimate approach to worldbuilding in the wake of catastrophe, its powerful musical elements, metaphors for climate trauma, the social aspects of gardens, the politics of knowledge production, and more.

Our guests are Pamela Carralero, a scholar of climate change, resilience, and ecocriticism at Kettering University, and Matthew Derby, a writer of podcasts, films, and novels, and a game designer at Harmonix/Epic Games.