Design researchers engage in speculative design to explore alternative futures. In speculative design, probes are used to engage participants in envisioning future design. Probes come in different forms and can be implemented as games or playful engagements. Due to the variety of probes, it is important for researchers to consider the properties of their probes. Moreover, these properties are not set only by analysing the depth and richness of probe results, but are also understood through analysing participants’ experiences of use. However, there is limited support in literature on the properties of gaming probes, and how they are experienced by participants. This study contributes to this void by using a city building game as a probe object in a speculative gaming probe (SGP) simulating a city environment for future mobility services, and gain insights on the experiences indicated by participants. The result of the study shows that the SGP is experienced as an empowerment of privileges in an alternative reality that is skill demanding, requiring an act of commitment. This has several implications for the use of SGP’s in design research. First, the powers provided by the game affects participants’ roles, but also their creative freedom. Second, researchers have to consider the learning curves of the SGP. Lastly, researchers should treat the SGP as one alternative in a set of probes.