Contribute for Bandung through Technology and Design
PLABS.ID journey on Bandung Design Biennale
Back Story
August 1st, I was assigned to join Bandung Design Biennale by PLABS.ID and was also tasked with ideating for the event itself. It was noon before lunch.
The morning after I learned the theme was “Sekitar” I saw a building just 100 meters away from my home, a new, clean, and big building, Terminal Leuwipanjang, recently renovated. It had been 25 years since I lived across from the building. The weird thing is, despite living nearby, I had rarely used public transportation in the past 10 years.
For me, public transportation in Bandung is just uncomfortable, uncertain, and unreliable. To only think “how I can get from my home to the office” is just stressful. I suddenly thought that maybe this is the issue I should address, but then I went to our office, 30 minutes away from my home using my motorbike. Along the way, I see piles of garbage every corner of the road. Turns out, Bandung also has a waste problem, big and undeniable.
After further research about my ‘sekitar’ I realize that this city has a lot of problems, but who is responsible for all of this? My first thought is the Mayor should be responsible for everything. Again, another twist in our research, we already changed our mayor four times in one period, isn’t that move your eyebrow? It’s like living in an Autopilot City but the software hasn’t been updated for many years.
Sometime we just want to express our emotion, our opinion about our “sekitar” but freedom of speech is just a thing. it’s not safe to express our opinion in public is not safe. People got doxxed, cyberbully, etc. , like
The question become shifted to “Why I am bothering living in this city?” “What do I love from this city?” “Why I am just stand stood not doing anything?” “What can I do with my skill?”
It’s frustrating to realize that living in Bandung is such a love-hate relationship, so I took a break to regain my grip. I rewatched a movie, The Batman by Matt Reeves. One thing I feel when watching this movie is the hope for a Batman-like figure in Bandung, not necessarily needed to fight street crime, but perhaps to speak out about what’s right. This may sound offensive, but at certain times, Bandung shares similarities with Gotham City. It’s unsafe to go out alone at night; you could get robbed or, even worse, encounter a so-called ‘gang’ or just reckless people.
In midst of the ‘chaos’ I am inspired by the villain, the riddler, and aspire to be one. Before you judge, of course I will not take the violent way! I’m just amazed by how the villain can convince people to make a movement by their own interest and match it with the villain intention.
I thought, what if we create a game and make the user ‘take control’ of the city by becoming the mayor itself. They can have all the resource, the money to solve the problems. We want to see how Bandung’s people will solve the issue with their creativity.
I do believe that good people deserve good leader, then if this city is called an emerging creative city why does our city look like it needs a lot of creativity? Does our city lack creative people or our city is just in the wrong hands? So, let’s take back the city!
Concept
First thing we build is user story. Our goal is to make narrative games with focused on being a ‘good mayor’ with their own perspective. The gameplay:
As a Mayor, you can select city challenges and match them with provided solutions. Each provided solution represents a moral dilemma designed to test the mayor’s political will. Alternatively, are you creative enough to devise a solution?
We’ve designed the game to be as simple as possible, considering that the content might be heavy for some users. Our aim is to emulate the experience of selecting a burger through a self-service device at a fast-food restaurant. However, in this scenario, the options won’t be flavors or packaging; instead, players will choose a solution that should shred some of their struggle living in this city.
So I spent a day in a fast-food restaurant near our office and tried ordering it, but this time I paid much more attention to the pattern. While I eat the french fries, I decide to divide the level of the information into four levels; Issue, Topic Group, Topic, Vendor.
Here is the comparison level of options or Classify Information between self-service fast food restaurants and our game, Autopilot City.
After deciding the flow, I’m rushing to create the prototype. Even though my fries are running out, I think it’s enough to fuel me to create the prototype.
Prototype and Initial Test
This prototype is what I imagine if people come by to nearby coffee shop, their second sight is the device, they became curious, and try the game.
We quick tested it internally in our office, to other co-worker. The feedback from our testing is that some people feel uncomfortable to stand in front of the device for too long, they feel more comfortable and can think more if they made the decision in their comfort zone. They demand more flexibility to access.
So we plan again, rethink, how to provide the access as wide as possible but still keep our games only for Bandung’s people? Avoiding ‘buzzer’ or people outside Bandung try the game, because this game is exclusive for Bandung’s people.
Then, I remember another Batman villain, Joker. His name remind me of playing card and distribute something in the shadow. So what if we distribute packs of playing cards through the city with Unique QR code behind every card to access the game. So people can play it casually and if they curious enough, they can access the game with just scanning the QR code.
So we are planning to distribute the card to all our connections through the city(read: cafe) every night, like a villain in a true superhero story. Is it necessary? No, but it was fun 😂.
Developing The Story
The grand plan is set and now we focus on the simulation content, since we don’t have any experience on solving city’s problem in other perspective than technology perspective, we invite the expert to help us solve the problem. Gagasan.id, InkubatorX, and Tunas Nusa.
Gagasan.ID was the first one to help us with crafting the content. Not only help us redefine, concept, and craft the content, but they also offer us to going extra mile, create more impactful result, create policy brief for Bandung’s Stakeholder. Surely, we cannot refuse great idea. The policy brief success was due in part to the immense dedication of Gagasan.id, we can’t thank you enough for what they strive.
Amidst our planning and research, InkubatorX reached out to us, offering help with all its resources: Pajak.com, Tigadimensi, Edunesia, and Nanococo. Giving us new insight about how we should nurture the idea, boost our publication with incredible execution for teaser, and support us in every conceivable manner for our event.
Lastly, Tunas Nusa join our team, represented by Ramalis Sobandi. She’s a teacher, carefully help us, teach us, a new generation to understand more about Bandung history, learn the true nature of Bandung, the purpose of this city. Her explanation so comprehensive and give us more believe to acknowledge that we’re on right path.
Each entity is undoubtedly an expert in their field, and having them in our project ecosystem is a blessing. Their contributions elevate our project, enabling the project to be born with strong vision from the start.
Visual Concept
Game Time!
Unfortunately right now Autopilot City is not available to play by the time you read this article, but you can use this link to try the prototype or contact us to try the full experience!
Recognized Among Other
This is our first time joining the Bandung Design Biennale, walking without guidance, yet our hearts are bursting with joy when we find out we have been recognized by other creative industry studios for our project. We have been invited to share our story at Pecha Kucha Night and join the Bandung Creative Community, among other experienced studios.
Not only that, our project is welcomed by open arms to collaborate with many cafes and space in every Bandung corner, because of our purpose for better Bandung future. This help us reach more people.
Conclusion
We actually have unfulfilled dreams, one of them is we are planning to create one persona and start propaganda in social media and conventional media about the content of the games. I imagine It looks like Mandarin propaganda in Iron Man 2. He is very convincing to play that role of a ‘terrorist’, spreading the terror to all over the world where he is only an actor.
Unfortunately, we need to bury the dreams anyway because it costs a fortune or/and time to execute, so hopefully some of you reading this article and want to support or collaborate with us to do something to our beloved Bandung, we are open to collaborate.
I hope Autopilot City project can put a spark in Bandung’s people heart, so Bandung can be a true creative city as we hope. I also hope what we did can be a chain reaction for other do the same with their own way.
We believe that encouraging people to stay aware about what’s happening in their city is the best way to improve their quality of life and the overall health of the city itself. The city will thrive as the people’s heart grows.
Passion. Think. Build.
