Smithsonian video game exhibition

Saw my name scrolling on the wall, thanks to my contribution to the Art of Video Games exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, which I went to see yesterday. (I think I paid $10 in an online campaign a year ago).

The exhibition was interesting, although it was more like a quick walk through the history of video games. Quite nostalgia-inducing, and interesting to see some old consoles and games that I’d only ever heard about.

The interactive section was pretty small, and I’d already played all the games long back (Pac man, Super Mario Bros., Curse of Monkey Island, Flower, and Myst), although it was funny to see all these kids for whom these games were clearly some archaic precursor to what they grew up on…).

And it was kind of fun to try to play Myst, and wonder how It became so popular given that you could play it for days without ever figuring out what to do and where to go…I guess we had more time back then, maybe fewer distractions. And also, it was definitely harder to find walkthroughs online, so I remember playing with friends and trying to figure out how to solve the puzzles, or discussing puzzles with others who had the game, slowly piecing together solutions based on our individual insights. As I said, it certainly required more time and patience…

So I guess it was a good exhibition for enthusiasts, inducing nostalgia for some and giving a sense of the history of video games for others.

But for an exhibition titled the Art of video games, I expected a bit more about how game art is actually designed, maybe a walk through of how one goes from a line drawing to a 2D or 3D video game character. They had a tiny little bit about that, but nothing much.

And more interactive segments would have been nice, rather than just 5 games, but they were probably concerned about turning the museum into an arcade 🙂