What makes a good museum game?

Holly Gramazio, a games designer at Matheson Marcault, who works mainly on real-world physical games, says that games in a museum context should be clear about what players are trying to accomplish.  

“There is a lot of work in very experimental games that plays with a lack of clarity about what your aims might be,” she says. “But if people aren’t approaching your game primarily as an art piece in its own right, but to illuminate their general experience of a museum, then there are expectations about legibility that I think it’s important to meet.

“The first thing that people ask when they start playing a game is ‘What am I trying to do? How do I win?’”

Rick Lawrence, the digital officer at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery (Ramm) in Exeter, says that a game should also clearly explain the “ooh factor” that answers the key question “why should I play this?”


It’s important to think about the specific context that the game will be played in.

“If it’s a game that people are playing within a museum space, how long can you expect them to do that for?“ Gramazio says. “If it’s a single-player game, especially if it’s going to attract children, then how long are their parents going to be willing to stand around for?

"There’s not much point putting in a 25-minute experience if there’s not also a coffee shop next door that the parents can sit in while also keeping an eye on their kid.”


Games are often seen as a way of bringing new people to the museum, but Stella Duffy, the chief executive officer of Fun Palaces, says that if a project is to be truly inclusive, audiences must be involved from the very start.

“If we are to genuinely achieve inclusion in culture, we have to allow people access to create and not just to consume,” Duffy says.

She believes that Fun Palaces’ participatory, grassroots approach helps it engage with a broad demographic: in England last year, 20% of Fun Palace events were held in postcodes that were the most deprived in the country (the top decile according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation) and about 30% of participants were from an ethnic minority.

“We are accessing groups of people that most culture doesn’t,” Duffy says.

Many museums may also be overlooking creative abilities within their organisation. A Fun Palace day at the National Maritime Museum in London last year gave the museum’s staff a chance to display their talents, with an art exhibition and an opera singing performance from members of its visitor experience team.

“In every cleaning group and in every cafe at every museum in the country, there will be at least one staff member who loves games and would be able to run something amazing at a Fun Palace,” says Duffy. “I guarantee that.”


Rick Lawrence from Ramm says that games are a way of tapping into peoples’ innate curiosity in a way that can support learning.

He often witnesses a sense of wonder in the discoveries made by children playing Minecraft at his museum – such as realising how small the inside of a Roman barracks is.

“When people can unlock information themselves, they feel it’s theirs,” he says.

Sacha Coward, a community participation producer at National Maritime Museum, London, who has created escape rooms for museum professionals, believes this type of game could also be used to engage the public with collections.

“We have collections of obscure maritime paraphernalia like sextants and octants,” he says. “Why would you ever learn to use a sextant? Well, what if you had 10 minutes to use one to fire a laser at a point so you can solve a puzzle?”


As well as encouraging learning, games are a chance for a museum to show a less serious side. Ramm has an online game where people can make their own Roman mosaic.

Players can choose between an authentic Roman colour palette and a more contemporary one.

“You’ve got the traditional Roman tesserae colours but also a completely modern palette,” Lawrence says. “So, if you want to make amazingly neon green and bright pink mosaics, you can. There is an element of trying to give people a museum learning experience, but also an enjoyable, playful experience – trying not to be too precious and pedantic about it.”