I’ve been watching Stumpt play a lot of PlateUp! on their Youtube channel lately. I haven’t bought the game myself, but I’ve tried the demo. And it’s really been making me think…

PlateUp! is many things: it’s a kitchen/restaurant management and strategy game, but it’s also a roguelite. It’s delightful. You select the dish you want to serve in your restaurant, the restaurant layout, and then try to "survive” by seating and feeding your customers before their patience runs out. You have to do this for as many days as possible, with more and more customers coming to the restaurant each day (wouldn’t it be great for all restaurateurs if this is how the real world worked?) and each new level presenting you with a challenge which adds to the difficulty of survival.

To help you on this quest for survival and culinary world domination you get a random choice of items at the end of each day (this is where the roguelite aspect comes in). And many of these adorably designed items have to do with automation.

In fact, it was while watching Stumpt Price’s videos that I realised, oh! This is the perfect way to explain what a “system” is!

Because we hear this word a lot. “Systems and change” is a theme in the English classroom in many schools here. We read of “systemic discrimination.” Sometimes someone might ask you, “what is your system for getting xyz done?” Or, disgusted with studying, we might throw our hands up and say, “this education system is broken!”

What, then, is a “system?”

Here’s what Oxford Learners Dictionaries have to say about what this word means:

1.      an organized set of ideas or theories or a particular way of doing something;

2.      a group of things, pieces of equipment, etc. that are connected or work together;

3.      a set of computer equipment and programs that are used together;

4.      a human or an animal body, or a part of it, when it is being thought of as the organs and processes that make it function.

It strikes me that definitions 3 and 4 really are specific versions of definitions 1 and 2. If we “factorise” all four ideas, then we see that the common threads running all through the many definitions are:

• the idea of organisation

• things coming in sets

• these things getting connected and

• working in a particular (maybe even pre-determined) way together.

That’s how the automation in PlateUp! works. If you look at the picture below, where the pink neon arrow is pointing, you’ll see what’s called a “conveyor” in the game.

This item always works in the same way—if a conveyor is placed next to another item in the game which can perform a task, e.g. a table which can slice veggies, or a machine for washing dishes, the conveyor will take the finished product of the task (sliced veggies and cleaned dishes) and send it automatically in the direction of the blue arrows, to the next item. Basically, it conveys items from point A to point B.

And that’s the beauty of it: PlateUp! shows us, in a more simplified and therefore manageable way, how systems are composed of discrete (meaning, separate) items, but these items have to work together in specific ways. If a conveyor is placed next to a rug in the game, for instance, nothing will happen, because these items were not designed to work together. If a conveyor is placed facing the wrong way in the game, you will not deliver your items to the next stage (and you will lose the game).

So if we apply this concept to life in general, e.g. if we think of the phrase “education system,” we realise that this massive whole (the education system) consists of different “elements”—people performing specific roles, different ways of doing things, different strategies, even down to different physical locations—that are working together in a very specific way. Each of these elements is like an item in the game; depending on how you place these items together, you could get different effects, or no effect at all.

If we’re going to say, then, that there’s an “issue with the system,” it might help to consider how constituent elements are maybe not working together, or not working as planned, rather than throw the whole system out!

However, do also consider, as in the game, systems in real life get really complicated.

Look at the next picture—and honestly, this one isn’t even showing how messy the kitchen can get in the game. There are some gamers who have achieved far more complex setups.

But that’s how things look and feel in real life, too, isn’t it? We think of the criminal justice system, or transport systems, or ecological systems, or even the human body. These are composed of so many different “items,” all working in unique and complex ways with one another, no wonder it sometimes feels like, in order to “fix” one aspect of the system, you’d need to alter every other aspect.

Interestingly, that’s how it is in the game too. You can imagine, from the picture above, that if you wanted to move just one item to a different location, you’d need to shift everything else in the kitchen! And, if you accidentally place one item wrongly, or forget to shift it back into position when you’re done messing around with everything else… well.

Ok, so why did systems evolve into these multi-element monstrosities? Why not keep things simple?

PlateUp! sort of answers that question too, if you analyse the game. The ultimate goal, as with any roguelite/cooking game, is to win, and in this game, you win by serving customers and thereby keeping your restaurant open. In order to do that, the immediate goal becomes automation, i.e. remove you, the player(s), from the equation because you alone (even in multiplayer) will not be able to keep up with the volume of customers coming in.

See how the bigger, “ideal” goal becomes translated into actual, immediate, objectives or goals? You want to achieve this ultimate outcome, but in order to achieve that outcome, you need to set smaller goals along the way.

That’s how it is in “real life” too. The criminal justice system in any society has huge, lofty ideals it serves, such as carrying out justice, maintaining law and order, etc. But in order to serve these lofty goals, actual things need to happen, e.g. have checks and balances, decrease rates of recidivism, put in place stringent processes for deciding who gets to decide what in the system, etc. Similarly, every education system has its specific big objectives, but to achieve those big ones, smaller ones are set on the way. All these multilayered goals create complexity in the system.

The complexity starts to ramp up even more when people cannot agree on the big goal, or the little ones, or cannot come to a consensus on whether the immediate goals eventually lead to the big abstract outcome.

Speaking of people—earlier I mentioned that items in the game only work if they are placed next to the items they were designed to go with.

And that’s the last lesson PlateUp! reminded me of—that systems, even systems that have the goal of automation (i.e. removing the people), are always really about people, and have people and people’s motives embedded in them. Just as the systems in the game were designed by game developers to achieve specific objectives, so we need to ask ourselves, who has designed the systems in the real world in which we find ourselves enmeshed? Who designed this education system, that traffic system, or the clock in and clock out system, or the reporting system? What are their stated and not-stated objectives? Who is maintaining the system, and why?

And perhaps most importantly: what are we doing in this system? I don’t think we can entirely remove ourselves from certain systems—we are enmeshed in systems so fundamental, like language or culture, or the economic system, that to remove ourselves would be almost unthinkable. But it’s important nonetheless to, every so often, consider what role(s) we’re expected to play in these systems we’re so deeply embedded into, and how we’re carrying out these role(s). Who knows, maybe a recognition of these underlying structures which shape our reality is just what we need to stop being a mere component part, and to start finding new ways to live!