Force Majeure

Force Majeure is a scenario about 13 people trapped in an air-raid-shelter. It was played in Sweden and Denmark and was designed by Leo Nordwall and Gabriel Widing from Interacting Arts.

Summary
Force Majeure is a two hour long game that is directed by a soundtrack.

Scenario
It is an ordinary day in an ordinary city. Suddenly, the air is filled with the booming sound of air raid sirens. Panic spreads across the city. The shrieking of the sirens is abruptly ended by a deafeningly immense blast of noise emerging from the city centre. Thirteen people are stuck in an air raid shelter, not knowing what to do next. They are faced with the hopelessness of the situation, each other and finally their inner selves.

The drama surges through four acts with different themes: Panic, Hopelessness, Agitation and finally Psychosis. Every character is connected to one of these themes and have an important impact on the events taking place in that act. Every character is however also likely to have impact in other acts as well.

In the end, everyone is faced with a final choice: leave or stay. What these options actually mean and what is reasonable to do will clarify itself during the course of the drama.

Techniques
The illusion of despair is created using a soundtrack that constantly runs for the duration of the drama. It features sound effects such as the air raid siren, suggestive music that was written exclusively, noisy radio broadcasts and pre-recorded "thought monologues". These pause the action, give new insights about the situation and push the story forward.

It was intended to be distributed in a ready-to-play box but only about 20 copies of the game was circulated.

Statistics
The production was run about 10 times with around 120 participants altogether.