Games & Interactive Experiences
Carked It!
Carked it is how Australians say died. It is also the name of a card game about life, death and beyond, made by The Ageing Revolution, the company Simon Lowe and Leonie Sanderson started long before PTR existed.
A game about life, death and beyond
Three decks, a table of people, and permission to laugh at the one subject a table usually steers around. Good Design Australia's entry page calls it an "ice-breaker to facilitate difficult discussions about life, death and what we want".
What is in the box
A black box with a skull in a party hat on the lid, a booklet, and three decks in green, yellow and blue. The game's own site translates the title for anybody who needs it: "Australian slang term for when something/someone has died".
The same page puts the case in one line. "We all have an eventual demise may as well plan for it while you can!"
The green deck: LIVE
Things worth doing while you still can. Sit for a life drawing class, paint your own coffin, swim with something wild, confess the crush you never mentioned.
The yellow deck: DIE
How it might actually happen, drawn with a straight face and a joke underneath. A quick one, a slow one, and a few endings only a card game would offer you.
The blue deck: BYE
What is left behind once you are not there to manage it. Messages for afterwards, a confession in the coffin, where the money goes, what gets said at the end.
The box carries a how to play booklet, and the award entry describes a Starter Will kit designed alongside it.
How it is played
Somebody at the table becomes the Funeral Director. Everybody else finds out how they die, argues for the life they want to spend first, and then settles what happens once they are gone.
Set the decks down, then find out how you go
Nominate a Funeral Director, separate the cards into 3 decks face down, and count them out: 68 LIVE cards, 48 DIE cards, 68 BYE cards. The person whose birthday falls closest to Halloween goes first.
Starting with Player 1, each player draws a DIE card, places it face up and shares their fate with the others.
Then the Funeral Director deals 5 LIVE cards facedown to each player, and everyone else argues for the last days the dying player should spend, until all players have chosen 2 LIVE cards. The BYE deck is dealt the same way, five cards each, and repeats until all players have chosen 2 BYE cards.
A player still holding the Eulogy Wildcard can play it face up for a chance to earn and award bonus points, which puts two people on their feet for 30 seconds each, honouring somebody who is sitting right there listening. Whoever ends with the most points is crowned the Legendary Death Doula.
The people who made it
A studio built around ageing, a tabletop game designer, an illustrator, and a network of people whose working life is death.
A company about ageing, and the people it called in
Carked It! came out of The Ageing Revolution, the Brisbane company Simon Lowe and Leonie Sanderson founded in 2015 after driving around Australia asking older people what ageing was actually like.
The game's own introduction names the team behind it: Simon Lowe, Hannah Ford-Morgan of Guildmaster Games as the game designer he sought out, and artist Miki Brogan, whose involvement the team called a stroke of artistic genius as she crafted the visuals that would define the game's identity. The game was co-designed with the Good Death Impact Network.
From Three Days to Die to a party hat
The design entry keeps every version, from the plain black box to the one that finally made people laugh.
What the design board shows
The board on this page runs the versions in rows, from the early Three Days to Die name on a black box to the final Carked It! with a skull in a party hat. The game that was tested under the first name was introduced to its testers as "an exciting new game designed to get the nation talking about death, dying and end of life planning!"
Good Design Australia's entry describes two years of development with palliative care staff and young people consulting on it, and a mascot drawn on purpose to be gender neutral, ageless and colour diverse, so that nobody at the table is the one being talked about.
Tested where people actually talk
A Probus meeting, a pub, somebody's back deck, and then the rooms where death is the job.
Where it went before it went on sale
The board names the rooms: a Probus club, a pub test, a game played at home, and the Good Death Impact Network, the Australian Centre for Social Innovation, Hummingbird House, LGBTQIA+ social groups and the Brisbane Global Game Jam.
The handwritten notes beside them are the ones that changed the game, including how to win being unclear and the pitch needing to sit on the box before anybody deals.
Seen at the table
Good Design Australia calls it an ice-breaker for difficult discussions about life, death and what we want. The Ageing Revolution films it: game play at a pub, and a short cut of death-defying reviews from their customers.
"Players who can see the funny side of just about anything/everything will have a riot."
Games Gazette UK, quoted on the game's own site.
"This game was awesome! Non-stop laughs and curious conversations about everything!"
Anna - Australia, from the reviews on carkedit.com.
An Australian Good Design Award
Good Design Australia lists it under Social Impact, co-designed with the Good Death Impact Network.
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Carked It! / The Ageing Revolution
The game was co-designed with the Good Death Impact Network. Read the award entry
The Good Death Impact Network
Carked It! arrived with a funder attached, and The Ageing Revolution names it on the game's own site.
The Ageing Revolution's own account of where the game came from reads: "This unconventional party game, that encourages and stimulates better conversations around dying and death, has been co-designed and partially funded by the Good Death Impact Network." The same page says the game was "created as a project by The Ageing Revolution", an organisation that began as a force to address ageism.
The same page names what supports the network itself: "Supported by The Wicking Trust, this impact network gives its members time out of business-as-usual to look up and see the bigger picture." The testing board names the Good Death Impact Network, Hummingbird House and the Australian Centre for Social Innovation among the groups the game was tested with.
Play it online, buy the box, take the Will Kit
Three doors into the same conversation, all of them on The Ageing Revolution's own site.
Play online
The game's own navigation carries a Play Online door. It opens CarkedIt Online.
Buy the physical game
Carked It! First Edition, sold from the game's own shop. "The hilarious Australian-made game that will help you get ready for your final days!"
Take the Will Kit
A free download. In the game's own words it "does include information about the decisions you will need to make and it offers a great starting point for you to let your loved ones know what your wishes are".
The game's Serious Stuff page asks the question the cards keep circling. "Do people know what you want when you are taken to hospital?" The same page answers it: "make sure people do know by completing an Advance Care Plan". The Will Kit sits on the page beside it, free to download.
The work PTR does now
People Tech Revolution's virtual reality training and AI roleplay are on this site.
A card takes the weight off the person who would otherwise have to raise it. So does a headset, and so does a practice partner who cannot be embarrassed. That is what PTR means by safe spaces for difficult conversations and situations, and Carked It! is where it is easiest to see.
Who reaches for it
The testing board answers that. It names the groups the game went to: the Good Death Impact Network (death professionals), the Australian Centre for Social Innovation (design innovation), Hummingbird House (children and young people), LGBTQIA+ social groups and the Brisbane Global Game Jam.
Where to find it
The Ageing Revolution is a separate company and Carked It! is its game, sold from its own site.
Sources
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Carked It! A Card Game About Life, Death and Beyond
The award entry: the credits, the Social Impact category and the design process boards. good-design.org
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Carked It!
Where the game is sold, and the source of the two brand marks above. carkedit.com
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Meet the Creators
Names Simon Lowe, Hannah Ford-Morgan of Guildmaster Games and artist Miki Brogan. The printed testing sheet on the design board reads Three Days to Die, while this post calls the earlier design Two Days To Die. Read the post
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How to Play
The Funeral Director, the three decks and their card counts, the Halloween birthday, the LIVE and BYE phases, the Eulogy Wildcard and the Legendary Death Doula. The deck counts and the deal in the How it is played band are quoted from here. carkedit.com/how-to-play
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Our Story, and Serious Stuff
The Good Death Impact Network co-design and funding, The Wicking Trust, the advance care planning question and the free Will Kit. Our Story and Serious Stuff
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The Ageing Revolution on YouTube
Where the three clips on this page come from. The Ageing Revolution channel
