Background

Research

Octopus Neural Structure
The neural structure of the octopus is not central like a human's, and challenges the notion of the central "consciousness" since their neurons are distributed through their tentacles. 10% are in the central brain, 30% in the optic lobes, and 60% in the tentacles.

The brain does not direct a singular arm--arms can perform actions independently, even when detached from the body.

Human Neural Structure
Humans, on the other hand, have a unary system with our entire consciousness centralized into one field of sensory experience. Our brain controls our body's movements and processes the senses received from different parts.

We are independent actors in life and act as such. However, what if we were  part of a larger organism, with each person receiving and processing sensory input and having a distinct consciousness, but physically connected and dependent on the other parts of the larger organism for survival? How would that affect our choices, our beliefs, our concept of self?

Goals

Concept

Although there are benefits to humanity's individualistic drives and separate consciousnesses, we stand to gain from studying the benefits of more collective species like passerine birds or fish, or species with distributed intelligence like octopi.

We developed Octet, a multiplayer, immersive sensory game experience where collective-based thinking is rewarded and the social/environmental consequences of individualism are shared. By linking players to a nerve stimulation device that increases voltage according to the game outcome, we induce a visceral feeling of connection and responsibility and encourage collective-driven decision making.
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Octet takes place in a speculative future Earth where human greed and overconsumption have led to ecological collapse and the decline of human civilization. In order to survive, humans have been placed in experimental groups called Octets where 8 people are sensorially linked and must make decisions as a collective.

Setup: 8 people sitting in a circle, connected via electrodes to a central TENS unit. Players access game scenarios and choices via mobile phone. If players make selfish choices, the entire octet suffers: voltage increases. Visceral pain becomes a shared experience as a consequence of individual selfishness.

Design

Gameplay
The game follows a linear narrative: the series of scenarios creates a general arc. The exact scenarios/questions differ each time for replayability.

Players each have an individual score and the Octet has a collective score. The individual choices made in each scenario affect both scores. The objective is for all players to survive all scenarios, balancing self-interest with the good of the group by keeping their individual scores and the collective score above 0.

Point calculations take inspiration from the Prisoner's Dilemma. The selfish option is always the rational choice, but only the collective option will result in the greatest mutual benefit. This reflects real-world scenarios and models how we make selfish decisions despite awareness it is to the detriment of the group.

However, we chose not to make the decisions completely blind: players can move/wave their arms in octopus-like manners to indicate which choice they intend to select. This limited signaling between neighbors more accurately reflects the extent of communication in real-world decision making, where people act with awareness of the societal choices of their close circle.

In our n-player model, we take two different approaches: in the first, majority cooperation results in the ideal (mutually beneficial) outcome, whereas in the second, only total cooperation results in the ideal outcome.

Visuals
‍The UI is kept minimal and clean, with a dark background to imitate the ocean's depths and lighter whites and blues for the interactive elements. Thin circles reminiscent of octopi suckers create a recurring motif.  

Prototyping

"The [nerve stimulation] was unexpectedly intimate...I thought it would be a sharp shock but it felt almost like a heartbeat running though the group."
— participant

The final game is browser-based and operates on a client-server model. My Python script manages the game logic and uses Flask and Socket.IO to communicate between devices. Client-side interfaces are HTML screens. I used a Cloudflare tunnel as a reverse proxy to generate a public URL the players could access. The TENS unit was operated manually for the demo video, but for future iterations, it would be controlled by my primary Python game script as well.

We used a 4-channel TENS unit for the nerve stimulation. We set it to the pulsing configuration, emulating a light tap at lower voltages and rhythmic "thump"/pinch at higher voltages that visibly jerked the user's arm.

One pair of electrodes forms a closed circuit, but we only had one electrode (4 channels = 8 electrodes) per person. We instructed players to hold hands with their neighbors so each pair of players would complete a circuit. Participants reported that holding hands with their neighbors heightened the sensation of the current and their awareness of the others when making their game decisions, creating the connection we aimed for.

Production