Eternagram: Inspiring Climate Action Through LLM-based Conversational Exploration of a Post-Devastation Climate Future

TL;DR

Eternagram uses an LLM-driven interactive narrative game set in a post-climate disaster world to engage players emotionally and promote climate action awareness through immersive storytelling.

Contribution

This work introduces a novel LLM-based chatbot integrated into a game installation to explore speculative climate futures and inspire pro-environmental attitudes.

Findings

Players engaged with the narrative showed increased climate awareness.

The game effectively fostered emotional connection to climate issues.

LLM-based storytelling can influence social attitudes towards climate change.

Abstract

Climate action is difficult to persuade because we tend to perceive climate change as remote and disconnected from daily life. Instead of traditional informational engagements, game-based interventions can create narratives that immerse the visitor in situations where their actions have tangible consequences. To make these narratives engaging, we used a speculative scenario of an alien stumbling upon social media to obliquely address climate change through a text-based adventure game installation. Mimicking visitors' natural dialogue in social media apps, we designed an LLM-based chatbot with knowledge of post-climate devastated world that mirrors our own planet Earth. In discovering the world's downfall through interactive chatting and posted images, players begin to realize that their own actions can make a difference on impacts of climate change in this distant world, fostering pro-environmental attitudes. Previously published at CHI, this game installation demonstrates the potential of LLM based creative narratives in exploring speculative worlds driving social change.