PastMaster: the final frontier

As we approach the ten-episode mark for season two of PastMaster I’m wondering where we should go next.

Since we started in May last year we’ve been to the Wild West, Medieval England, a Viking raid, Middle Earth, the Industrial Revolution, the Jurassic period, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, Prohibition-era America, assassinated Hitler in Vienna, recruited Queen Elizabeth I for a musical, sailed the high seas as a pirate, prevented nuclear war, wrestled the Witchfinder General, solved the Jack the Ripper case, torpedoed the Tory party, prevented the colonisation of Africa, talked shit with Jesus in Galilee and been to the year 3000 (well, 2985).

We’ve played two-player PastMaster, given true crime the AI treatment, imbued our ‘GameMaster’ with an AI generated voice and cranked up the difficulty to make the game more of a challenge and less of a stroll through the ChatGPT bullshite.

So where to next? We have a number of brilliant guests lined up for 2024 and each one will bring their own unique desires, quirks and misadventures to the show. We can’t wait to see where they lead us.

But for our own ‘house’ episodes, the ones with Ryan, Keon and me all racking our brains and letting our inner voices entice us into adventures, we have a wild set of options…

• Empires to explore – “GameMaster, take me to visit the Aztecs, or maybe Genghis Khan!”

• Three player PastMaster (or why not four player, come to think of it?)

• True crime – did Adnan Syed really kill Hae Min Lee? (Of course not)

• Missions – can we stop the Titanic from sinking (and what will that mean for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett?)

• Monster rampage mode – “GameMaster, I am Godzilla and have woken up very, very angry”

• Hard mode next level AKA ‘Legacy of Time’ (No save game allowed)

• Planet of the Apes mode – “GameMaster, take me to the distant future when the planet Earth is run by intelligent chimpanzee people”

• A run in with Prince Andrew and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein (can it be libel if someone’s reputation is already zero?)

• Evil Dead mode: “GameMaster, I wish to unleash a zombie virus in Mr Darcy’s house

• Artefact mode (you are allowed one modern day object to take back with you)

What would be most fun to play? What can we learn by playing out these adventures? About history? About AI? And even about ourselves…? And what difference will it make as the AI advances? GPT 5 can’t be too far off now after all.

There’s a lot to go at. If you know what you’d like to see the PastMaster team explore next, get in touch and let us know at [email protected]