The Severn Rising 2222 Project Visits the Museum

Severn Rising 2222 is an ambitious imagining through gaming, of what the City of Worcester, might look like 200 years in the future, where Worcester has been flooded, humans have left, and the city is consumed by nature.

Dominated by the River Severn which flows through it, Worcester is already at the mercy of nature, and regularly experiences flooding which leads to residents and wildlife alike, modifying their lifestyle. The Severn Rising 2222 project, challenges the residents of Worcester to learn more about climate change, pollution and the direct impact it will have on their community.

The experience will be at the Museum of Royal Worcester from Tuesday 8th August to Sunday 20th August.

The game brings together beautiful, vibrant depictions of nature and Worcester’s landmarks by artist Sarah Millin, with the game design skills of Andy Round of Paradise Multimedia. The game was developed through a series of creative workshops held in heritage, cultural and environmental venues, across Worcester during 2022. The workshops encouraged participation from a wide demographic of Worcester residents and explored environmental impact through art. Learn more about the workshops, project partners and how the game was developed here.

Back in December 2022, the Museum hosted a group of children from St Barnabas School who who illustrated broken pottery which was then used to create the Museum of Royal Worcester area in the game. It was great to be able to utilise something that would be perceived as ‘broken’ in the creative process, helping to reinforce the sustainable message of the project. The images shown here were the final results of the our workshop with the children – aren’t they wonderful.

Sarah and Andy developed the visual look of the game together, taking inspiration from the community workshops, Sarah created the illustrations and Andy saturated the colours and added reflections creating a psychedelic visual language.

The team were keen to make the game as simple as possible, to allow anyone to play it. During the game the player guides Swan and Duck, the two central characters, as they explore a vision of flooded Worcester. Using interactive techniques, the player navigates characters inspired by the natural world as they seek to solve puzzles to unlock the mystery of what happened to the humans and find out where they have gone.

Learn more about the artists and how they have used their individual skills to bring together gaming, art and environmental awareness at the live event at the Museum from the 8th – 20th August at Severn Street, Worcester.