Doomsday Golf
Safety Precautions for the End of the World
2025
Interactive installation
Narrative Walkthrough
The end is nigh!
Since the dawn of time (2800 BCE), humans have obsessed over the end of of the world. The Mayans, Judaism and Christianity, miscellaneous Doomsday cults, the Cold War, Y2K, etc. We are always on the brink, yet somehow here we are. Perhaps because of the individual’s obsession with their own death, the larger group obsesses with the end of the totality of life. There is always an impending sense of dread.
In contemporary culture, we celebrate the apocalypse - or come to terms with it - through our entertainment. We see it in books (The Road), comics (Y: The Last Man, The Walking Dead), video games (Fallout, The Last of Us), and especially in film and television (The Terminator, Silo, The 100, and so on.) Ironically these stories are filled with hope. Even in the post-apocalypse, the stories are about the continuation of life in spite of everything.
In this interactive miniature golf installation, the “player” must stop the doomsday clock in order to prevent the nuclear war that will kills us all and the end of the world as we know it. Humanity’s last hope is for the chosen one to put the ball in the hole before times runs out.
Installation View
SCAD Fall Showcase 2025
Safety Tips
Installation View
Interaction
🎮 Game Flow
1. Idle state: video”. The Pi waits, showing a “Press button to Start” OSD with a looping “attract 2. Button pressed: ◦ Starts the main loop video and timer 3. Ball detected OR timer expires: Plays the corresponding video (SUCCESS or TIMEOUT) Success: Timeout: 4. Returns to waiting for the next button press.
Process / Construction
Process / Construction
Process / Construction
Doomsday.py Code excerpt
if ball_detected:
play_success()
else:
play_timeout()