Best in show

“This dramatic reinterpretation of John Buchan’s original story from 1915 is more multifaceted than a lot of games –it’s also an ebook, a digital adventure and an archive.

Pop-up vignettes and voices carry the story along as you progress through its pages, and archival imagery created from newspapers and documents of the time gives you the background not only to what was happening in Britain on the eve of the first world war but also on each individual day of the story.

The espionage element is a key part of the thriller and players are given different tasks to help the hero, Richard Hannay, solve problems as he tackles the mystery and endeavours to escape the clutches of foreign spies and police officers pursuing him.

One task, for example, involves tracking down map coordinates to find your way through the Scottish landscape to an important village location.

The pictured scene will be recognisable to anyone who has seen the film adaptations of the book as Hannay tries to evade capture on a railway bridge.

The early Alfred Hitchcock movie is probably the most popular and has some comic twists, while the star-studded 1970s version tried to stick a little more closely to the book.

Simon Meek has long had an interest in how good literature and a strong narrative can play an important role in gaming and exposing new audiences to classic books.

He collaborated with a wide range of artists, developers and programmers, actors and historians through his Story Mechanics team, one of the three independent – or niche – companies we are highlighting in the Game Masters exhibition.

The show, which was conceived by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, looks at the names behind the games – the developers who have been influential across the format from the late 1970s to the present day.

It traces how the technology has advanced over the years by remembering how the public first saw games in amusement arcades and then, following the development to home, playing with the likes of an Xbox and PlayStation, and the mobile technologies that now make gaming more accessible to everyone.

There’s no doubt that games are an artform in their own right and the exhibition, which includes more than 100 games for visitors to play, features original artwork and documentaries explaining both the influence games have had over the years and the research and development that goes into their creation.

There’s a misconception that gaming is all about shoot ’em ups, but there are some sophisticated layers of gaming with a variety of themes and elements for audiences of all kinds to enjoy.

And they’re not just for single nerdy men any more: current statistics show that a lot more women than males take their gaming seriously.”

Game Masters is at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, until 20 April

Sarah Rothwell is the assistant curator of art and design at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh