Gaming the Museum: Share and reflect

Thanks to all of you for your brilliant participation in our workshop. I took a few notes as people reported back their games ideas, and I'm posting them here. Apologies if I didn’t get them quite right – they were coming thick and fast.

A platform game based on the history and legacy of Nike's innovation in sportswear: players pass milestones in Nike product history, collect 'golden trainers etc.

A role-playing game based on the life of Chinese migrants to Canada: seeking to make a life for oneself in Canada, overcoming social and material obstacles.

World of Craftwar: Tower defence game based on a ceramics collection. Ceramics are towers; artists are strength: enemies are time, water and hyperactive children.

First person conservator: whip out vital weapons such as a q-tip  and brush to preserve and repair paintings in a gallery.

Three of a kind card game, matching images of paintings with critical statements and interpretation.

An Augmented Reality role-playing game based on the Mabinogion (Welsh pre-Christian Celtic mythology) which takes place in the landscape of the myth itself. Become a character, answer questions and complete tasks to compile the book.

A pirate beat 'em up, played as a Danish noblemen

Trade or Slaughter, a role-playing game to accompany a forthcoming Danish Viking exhibition, incorporating trade for exhibition objects and moral ambiguity

Combat medics: a sophisticated puzzle game in which you are given wounded soldiers to save. After triage you are offered medical instruments with which to attempt to save lives. Succeed, and progress forward through medical history.

A role-playing game of sex for teenagers.

There were a few I didn’t quite get the gist of at all: (apologies, bad acoustics in the room):

Collaborative sim game.

Word game based on the Wellcome Images postcards. Type in a word, image, clue to another word.

An AR game or quest for collections themselves.

Art scrabble fpshooter -- shoot photos of objects, get words.

If any of the game ideas here were yours, please leave a comment with more detail – we'd love to have as full a record as possible of the ideas you came up with.

I really liked the approach here, of using standard game concepts like "shoot 'em up", etc (these are quite well defined and understood by gamers) and evaluating their existing defining characteristics against your organiosational challenges.

I especially liked the game based on "tower defence" games where the objective was to prevent STDs with the further development of playing bad and attempting to infect as many people as possible. I think that would work as a game that young would find funny, but could easily get people to understand the issues.

Well done guys - good workshop