Exploring Imagination, Power, and Play: Joost Vervoort on All Will Rise in Player Driven

What happens when a game is designed not just to entertain, but to help us re‑imagine how power works in the real world?
That’s the question STRATEGIES researcher Joost Vervoort dives into on the latest episode of Player Driven, where host Lewis Ward leads a rich conversation on Joost’s upcoming game, All Will Rise.

What begins as a discussion about game mechanics quickly opens into something bigger: how games shape culture, how they can open political imagination, and why interactive systems are uniquely suited to help players explore complex societal themes.

Joost brings a rare hybrid perspective as both an academic and a game developer. On the podcast, he talks about games as powerful “imagination engines”—systems that let players experiment with future possibilities, understand power from the inside, and practice new ways of being in the world.

In All Will Rise, these ideas come alive through a distinctive blend of political strategy, emergent storytelling, and player‑driven consequences. Joost and the team use the medium of games not just to illustrate challenges of the climate era, but to help players feel them—then push beyond them.

One of the episode’s strongest threads is the question of balance: How do you take on huge issues like climate justice or social inequality without turning a game into a lecture?

Joost argues that the key lies in agency. If players can explore systems, try different strategies, and see how their choices ripple outward, they remain deeply engaged—even when the themes are challenging. Games can do what no report or documentary can: turn abstract concepts into lived experience. If you care about where games are heading—or how players can engage with climate, culture, and power in ways that traditional media can’t touch—this episode is worth your time. It opens up a future where indie storytelling pushes into new territory, where game studios feel empowered to tackle the “big stuff,” and where play becomes a tool for collective imagining and societal transformation.