The Family Experiment

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. In the UK, the breaking point has arrived: a growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby…

Some families are virtually perfect… The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families—real and virtual. It is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi—a virtual baby.