Art gallery visitors invited to play students’ computer games
24th April 2025 – Tags: Game Design
The worlds of gaming and galleries have come together thanks to a collaboration between the Sainsbury Centre and our Game Design and Development students.
From Friday 25 April to Thursday 1 May, the Pixel Project will activate the museum with play, with visitors invited to play demo versions of the students’ games – all of which have taken their inspiration from pieces in the Sainsbury Centre’s collections.
Associate Artist Marnie Hardy introduced the students to the Sainsbury Centre galleries and led creative workshops to support them to reimagine the objects in other contexts.
The UAL Diploma Game Design and Development students have developed playable video games inspired by this work. Their games offer ways to see and interact with the collection as never before.
Game design and development student Fin Matthews, 16, has developed a game called Art Odyssey in which players enter worlds inspired by different art pieces and try to collect artefacts and solve puzzles.
Fin says, “I’d never been to the Sainsbury Centre before. It was quite cool and fun taking these artefacts that are hundreds or thousands of years old and putting them into the games and imagining the museum in a different way.”
Aidan Wood’s game Masks of the Lost is a stealth platforming challenge in which players must avoid getting caught by different masks from the collection, each of which has its own distinctive powers and sound effects.
Aidan, 16, says, “On the course they get us to go through different ideation processes, which involves a lot of imaginative thinking. This project was different in that we had to go to a client and base our games around that. Whilst it was different, it was also very interesting.”
The students will be looking for feedback from visitors, which they will then use to further develop their games in the coming weeks.
Dylan Gooding, 17, adds, “I’m looking forward to it. I’m quite excited to see how it’s going to play out with the different ages of those coming along to play the games, which could be whole families. It’s going to be interesting seeing them play everyone’s games.”
Dorian Cozens, Game Design and Development lecturer at City College Norwich, comments:
“We encourage our game design students to look for inspiration well beyond the sphere of gaming. It has been a brilliant experience for the groups to work alongside Marnie and turn their creative interpretations of the Sainsbury Centre collections into playable games.”
The Pixel Project runs from 25 April to 1 May and can be found in the Sainsbury Centre’s East End gallery. The event is free, and there is no need to book.