The document discusses the integration of games and play into museum experiences, emphasizing their role in education and engagement. It highlights examples of existing museum games, the effectiveness of different game mechanics, and the need for museums to adapt to audience expectations and technological advancements. The document also explores the balance between fun and learning, addressing the challenges museums face in implementing gamification and interactive elements.

1. London Museums Group
Pinball Wizard: Games for Learning
Twitter: @londonmuseumsgroup
Keynote – Martha Henson
Gamesand Museums – Co-operative,social,engaging,learninglittle-knownhistoriese.g.learning
about the OpiumWars,China,Illegal andlegal trade.Withthisgame,there wascommunitypolicing
inthe website whichdiscussedthe topicsfeatured
How to make greatmuseumgames
Have a personwhounderstandsthe designprocessof games
What isa game?
1) Mechanics – rulesof the games
2) Dynamics – how the rulesact together
3) Aesthetics –the playersexperience
Unlikelygame producer–Dutch National Ballet - http://playbounden.com/
Good games?
 Intrinsicallyrewarding
 Continuouschallenge
 Playfeel satisfying
 ExtrinsicMotivation –pointsforexample
Good gameswithpurpose
 Mechanicsthat fit
 Draft
 Prototype
 Revise
 Test
 Revise
How notto make games
 What youwant the game to be withoutspeakingtogame designers
 Limitedtime andresources
 Failingtomatch objectivesand outcomeswithmechanics
 Forgettingtargetaudiences
 Assumingitwill just“goviral”
 Failure toevaluate orpasson informationtootherse.g.new staff
Gamesinspiration
 Board games
 Don’tjust thinkof compute games

2. Gamification in Museums – Matthew Friday
Examples of museum games – trails are a low-level example. Digital is not always required.
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp
Taking things that don’t start as games
Elements
 Dynamics – emotions, narrative, progression
 Mechanics – challenges, co-operation, quest, competition, rewards
 Components – achievements, badges, gifting, leaderboards, levels, points
 Facts – adding a scenario to them
 Style guides – questionnaires in classrooms/knowledge tests
= behavioural change – positive relationships
More people playgamesthanvisitmuseums = audience segmentation and educational psychology
= Fun
What is fun?
Games Designers :
- Easy Fun: surprise, curiosity and wonder (which museums excel at)
- Hard Fun: difficult to do and solve, mastery, frustration and reward
- People Fun: social
- Serious Fun: repetition, connection, relaxation, excitement
But ‘Serious Fun’ doesn’t need gamification
Museum games are not really games. They use a subjective approach which focusses on play and
participation e.g. British Museum and V&A New European Collection.
Pokémon Go in Museums – Jack Ashby
 Pointsgame where peoplegoto“gyms” forfightingother pokémons.Pokéballsare collected
at pokéstops e..g. museums, libraries etc
 Museums are late adopteres – lack of expertise, lack of time, lack of technical support and
institutional approval
 PokémonGo – museumsare passive participants.Permissionand approval are not required
 Opportunities for small museums to market themselves, large museums can become
pokéstops,programmingandactive engagementthoughthe use of “lures”whichcanbe used
by museums to buy pokéstops
The Playful Museum Project – Charlotte Derry
ManchesterMuseum set themselvesachallenge tocreate an environmentforthe value of play and
playfulness in its own right.

3.  Anticipation in the minds of children when they visit museums
 Museums are not a separate place – play and education
First steps – observation of children’s movements in museums. Was the museum promoting and
constrainingchildren?The control imposedbyparents.Therewasaperceptionthatthe museumwas
not for play or teaching.
What if?- In a gallery,cardboardandmaterialswere leftforchildrentouse.There were promptsfor
them e.g. a missing dinosaur needs to be replaced.
- Historical nonsense – silly Olympics which were not overly physical
- Visitor Services Assistant asking children to give a dinosaur egg (goose egg) to another
VSA in a different gallery
The museumwasgoingwiththe childrenandhow theymovedthroughthe galleries –‘learningchild’
with the museum space being ‘messy’ = play and learning
- Responsive
- Practising
- Reflection
http://happymuseumproject.org/case-study-manchester-museum-developing-skills-to-support-
child-led-play/
Making Museums – Dave Patten and Ben Templeton
Science Museum – the past:
 Video conferencing for 14yrs+ - a game within a system which made them learnt about
commissioning and working with external agencies, 1995 – 1999
 2000 – Wellcome Wingwhere 80 new games were commissioned,hardscience e.g.learning
behaviour than un-learning the behaviour and computer coding
 1998 – shared games, working together e.g. ‘Codegame’
 1999 – InFuture – upto 2020, cars driving themselves? Chips in children for tracking? Men
having babies? – Voting about each possible development, promotion of discussion and
conversations. This game lasted for 15 years = robust system
 2005 – worked with different art groups e.g. dance, motion tracking in space. Outside the
cultural sector – gaming and arcade industries
 ‘Launchball’ rebuilt.Its’ core concept was experimental and had 30 levels which extra could
be made by users = Top 5 of web visits. Mechanics was everything.
Science Museum – Present:
 1.6bn gamers worldwide
 35 years, average age
 44% - 35 years+
 97% young Americans play games
 48% users are female

4. 2012 and2016 mobile phone surveys –visitorsdonotwanttolearnnew thingsinmuseums.Only14-
16% want to download apps.
 1.5 million downloads for ‘Transmission’ – global figure
 Pose like the sculpture
 Bodiam Castle – using props of old tools to hear voices from the castle walls
 National MuseumsScotland –‘Capture The Museum’ – teamsof visitorstoanswerquestions
to capture collection items
 Science Museum – ‘Ragged Rovers’ for teenagers to get them involved in engineering, how
engineers think and behave – design, testing and rate, an open brief with outcomes.
Teenagers designed their own rovers. There were six terminals where they can bring their
own device or download the app. 15 minutes engagement with design = 4 rovers were
created. Touring versions were produced with a shared use attitude or standalone.
 British Museums – ‘Adventure Cards’
ww.britishmuseumshoponline.org/masterpieces/professor-munakatas-british-museum-
adventure/invt/cmc24650
 MSI Chicago– ‘Future Energy’,teamsmove between5gameswhichlasted3-4minuteseach.
Teamscompetedagainstotherteams.Teamswerefriendsorstrangers.Facilitatorspushesor
inspires conversations
http://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/exhibits/future-energy-chicago/
Future
 Science Museum – Experimenting with the relationship between virtual reality and actual
artefacts. Does VR encourage visitorsto look at the object? Light-touch journey e.g. landing
of a plane. The virtual realityof a plane landing disappears, leaving the visitor in front of an
exhibit of a plane.
 Natural HistoryMuseum,Utah – ‘Utah Futures’,torefreshexistinggame withacollaborative
approach to natural resources and the impact on environment. Behavioural change NOT
learning
https://nhmu.utah.edu/museum/exhibits/utah-futures
 New York Hall of Science – ‘Connected Worlds’ for children. Sustainable connected world –
plants, sawing, chopping, re-direction of water. Interaction between children. Issue
surrounding briefing visitors before the game. Children overwhelmed by the space and
couldn’t work with each other.
 http://nysci.org/connected-worlds/
 Museum is measuring the tracking of visitors through digital technology – conversations?
BodyLanguage?Speed-uporslow-downactionsof visitors?=synchronisationof datastreams
= eye-level video streams are needed.
 Aim = museum measures which measure without “people on the floor” to ask
 Disney – ‘Magic-Bands’ – a band which gives visitorsaccess to hotel,park, shops which links
directly to their credit card details. Visitors tracked by Disney who takes photos of visitors -
$200 for an album. Email from Disney a week after the holiday. With access to extra
information.
Pop-up Games Discussion – Fran Jeens, Laura Houthall, Andrea Cunningham and Sophie Sage
Jewish Museum

5.  15,000 students a year
 20% of requests were for self-directed but request for materials and directions
 Children’s second language is English = worksheets not useful for them. They don’t enjoy
them.
 Board game whichwas self-directed,paperless,involvedgroupdiscussion.Theme hadto be
‘prayer’ as in national curriculum. Questions – 4 themed, playful, informal tone but not
personal and no prizes involved
 Costs - £2,000 but staff time not costed. Non-digital option was welcomed.
RIBA
 Minecraft was the option for using 4,000,000 objects
 Evaluation – more digital wanted by visitors
 Worked with Blockworks – 18 years old MD.
 Brutalism Project – 231 unique players, 35 simultaneous players = global population
 Users had no knowledge of brutalism – discussions with other layers about research and
buildings used for referencing
 Intrinsic learning without prompts
 Palladianism Project – new minecraft tool to create columns
 Outcome not as good as the brutalism competition
 Difficult to get hold of the MD – now at university
= Engaging with young people on own terms
The Museum of Childhood
 ‘Game Plan: Board Games re-discovered’ – the exhibition is a board game itself with a
‘gameface’ at the end where questions are answered by the visitors
 Badges handed out with smiley faces from ‘no gamer’ to ‘sore loser’
 Collaboration with London College of Communication – school for childrenof different ages
to meet and play with each other
 Analogue vs Digital – designing own games, historical games in digital
 Encouraging children to be playful – an evening event had 100 people
 Families – parents dress up with children to solve puzzles – piloting sessions
 FoH – snakes and ladders, moral dilemmas and shadow puppets
 Art of disappearing – solving issues and problems in order to escape a room
Physicality and Play – Sophie Sampson, Matheson Marcault
Engage people with places and ideas
 Scientific village fêtes
 Intensity of play – how to support players, how to make them relax
 Risks – being bored, looking silly, getting in the way
 What gets people playing in public?
 What stops people from playing in public?
Kings College London – courtyard for play in their Arts and Humanities Festival about play

6.  Going into serious environments
 Her company had high perches to observe students
Decision to play:
 The Attractor – games
 The Invitation – chairs and instructions
 The Threshold – feeling vulnerable? Reward for doing so? Do better than the other people
playing?
 People had to do it with someone else
 Those playing alone were not visible to others
Call and Response:
People doing
 Looking
 Imagining
 Documenting
 Posing
 Playing a little or a lot
 Inventing
 Returning
 Breaking things
 Making things
The End:
End of play