On Science Fiction, Neuroscience, and Dice.
Where themes of Hive-Minds and Tabletop Roleplay overlap with our Future.
We live in a world of abstractions, where the mind constantly creates and updates mental models to make sense of its surroundings. Memory can be fragile, often fading as we move between spaces, with our internal maps shifting as quickly as we navigate them.1 Simulation is intrinsic to human nature, as is play— a topic I explored just a few weeks ago. Today, I’ll be exploring Hive Synapse Spy Agency, a tabletop game by Austin Lim and Anton Galang, as its background sheds light on the cross-sectionality of neuroscience, science-fiction, and the power of games to envision a new future.
We play to help understand the world around us in a safe environment. It is an adaptive behavior prevalent throughout nature2 that allows a creature to imagine scenarios and test abilities that may aid them when they are met with these encounters.
“Although adults might define as work infants’ struggle to balance and begin to stand or walk independently, infants appear to have intrinsic motivations for achieving these motor skills and show expressions of pleasure in achieving them. Thus, this motor practice appears to be play for infants.” - Garner, B. P. (2021)
So, we create simulations outside our mind in order to form simulations in our mind, all-and-all to understand the world best we can. We are developing creatures, who still use play to grow throughout our lifespan.3 Play is good for the brain.
Austin Lim is a game designer trapped in a professor’s body, where he says the word “synapse” roughly 40 times each lecture. He is the author of Horror on the Brain: The Neuroscience Behind Science Fiction. He loves the regurgitated products of bee stomachs, especially in tea and oatmeal.
Anton Galang is a freelance writer/editor with a focus on consumer tech and smart home gadgets, as well as a father of three with a focus on everyone making it through each day alive. His diverse hobbies range from running fantasy role-playing games to running fantasy football leagues. At the time of publication, he has not been stung by a bee.
These two designers have created Hive Synapse Spy Agency, a transhumanism submission to the Help a Hive game jam, with the thematic involving players acting as spies in a heist while neurologically linked to each other in a network-based hive-mind.
One of the central goals of the game jam was to expand the genre of hive-minds in novel ways that tightly integrate theme with mechanics. I would like to highlight some notable mechanics within this work below that do just that:
The use of flipping playing cards to indicate whether a player is broadcasting their thoughts, which could be activated at any time.
The integration of stress into this mechanic, making it increasingly difficult to cease broadcasting under high tension.
The potential, though not guaranteed, inclusion of a double agent role.
Class inequalities, which challenge the emphasis on balance often seen in tabletop games. While board games benefit from equal chances of victory, roleplaying games allow narrative freedom, where imbalances can enrich storytelling through unique roles and losses.
Clear guides on when its relevant to make rolls or simply narrate.
The use of timers, such as requiring players to "fill in a bubble" for every action, regardless of its real-life speed.
A Game Master’s guide to support facilitation
This was an absolute joy to read. A lot of thought was put into the overlap between the mechanics and the thematic of the game, and that will greatly contribute to how immersive a session runs. I don’t believe there’s a lot out there doing so within this niche.
This past weekend I found myself wandering the halls of Philcon 2024 (a Philadelphia Sci-Fi convention). While there we’re several well-spoken and innovative points made on tabletop games, they were equally balanced out by a consistent mentality to stick to the D20 system with random tables and homebrew underneath the katamari that is Dungeons and Dragons. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I again believe we as a medium could more-often go a step further.
Sticking to thematics for a moment, I always find myself clinking against non-existent glass when tinkering on ideas and settings to work with. It feels like the flavor I choose for a game is so arbitrary. But then again, look at the most popular games on itch.io right now: bears heisting honey, building a playlist for the void, and a dwarven tower defense game. It does not matter how goofy or serious a setting is, but what does matter is how well you commit and design holistically / loyally to that theme, and facilitate that with the proper mechanics.
So at its core, I believe one of central themes within a hive-mind to be connection. This could be connection to grief and loved ones, connection between overlapping themes and values, and in Spy Agency’s case; connections between our varying goals and the state of our team members. And what does better at connecting folks than a good game, in a simulated environment, where problems and conflict don’t have to leak into our own lives. We get most of the benefits and quite few of the drawbacks.
Disconnection is another recurring theme in stories about hive-minds. Take the Cybermen in Doctor Who, who sever themselves from humanity in pursuit of efficiency. Or consider Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Earth, where the protagonist wrestles with concepts of why he is delivering the hive to humanity and questioning whether individuality can survive alongside his unusual companion. Within further narratives, hive members rarely even function well outside their collective connections. Outside of speculative fiction, the term "hive-mind" often carries a negative connotation on the internet. It evokes images of herd mentality and the erosion of individual nuance.
Hive Synapse Spy Agency is one of few seeking to play with these themes. Through its unique mechanics, the game presents players with a shared mission that requires collaboration and alignment of goals. Yet, it simultaneously assigns distinct personalities and secrets to each character, creating a dynamic interplay between connection and disconnection. Players must navigate this tension, balancing the shared perspective of the hive with the fragmented individuality of their roles.
One concept I’d love for someone to explore further is what happens when one hive-mind encounters another—not just as a numbers game, like zombies fighting another set of zombies, but as a more holistic, thought-provoking interaction.
There’s one more layer to mention within common hive-mind stories: science-fiction. What is the ultimate purpose of the genre itself?
Science-Fiction itself belongs under the umbrella of speculative fiction. We call movies like Star Wars space opera, while Dune and Frankenstein still fit the bill. It must instill some values of what a future for mankind might look like, through our current understanding of science.
Science-Fiction influences how we design technology (such as the submarine), invest in technology (such as vaccine rollout), and prepare for possible technology (such as The Matrix and SlugBot: Enemy of Slugs). It allows us to simulate and reflect on who we were, who we are, and who we want to be.
Austin and Anton developed a science-fiction game grounded in their expertise in neuroscience and an understanding of current technology, all under the central motif of the hive-mind.
This intersection of said themes shine through in their exploration, simulating a goofy-version of a possible future. Set in a playful and lighthearted world, the game provides a safe space to reflect on our connections with others and ourselves. It invites players to imagine how we might navigate our collective future while experimenting with those ideas in the here-and-now.
Images and ideas about the future are constructed in people’s minds and generate social, collective realities that are the construct by which our futures are made ‘real’ … Polak’s Image of the Future (1961) and Boulding’s publication of The Image (Boulding, 1961) reinforced the power of the image when considering the future.
In his seminal work, Polak (1973, p. 19) notes: “The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures” with images shaped by the degree of optimism or pessimism about the future and the degree of human agency to influence that future.
By working within the framework of science fiction, we can choose to dive into the concept of shared mental spaces while allowing ourselves to engage with the unknown possibilities of the future. Safely grounded in the present, Hive Synapse Spy Agency offers a way to explore these ideas before any thematically-adjacent future becomes reality.
Arm yourself with play; we’ll need it.
In other news pertaining to the future, I’m excited to share more about projects inspired by PhilCon—stay tuned for some actionable takeaways. In the meantime, check out Hive Synapse Spy Agency for a unique take on hive minds and connection. Finally, if you or your teens are interested in science fiction and media literacy, I occasionally run middle school and high school virtual classes—feel free to reach out!
Loomis, J. M., Klatzky, R. L., & Giudice, N. A. (2013). Representing 3D space in working memory: Spatial images from vision, hearing, touch, and language. Multisensory imagery, 131-155.
Tonkin, A., & Whitaker, J. (Eds.). (2016). Play in healthcare for adults: Using play to promote health and wellbeing across the adult lifespan. Routledge.
Van Leeuwen, L., & Westwood, D. (2008). Adult play, psychology and design. Digital Creativity, 19(3), 153-161.
Burr, B., Atkins, L., Bertram, A. G., Sears, K., & McGinnis, A. N. (2019). “If you stop playing you get old”: investigating reflections of play in older adults. Educational gerontology, 45(5), 353-364.