The Dutch Open-air Museum and Rijksmuseum collaborated in a major project: an exhibition that explains 5000 years of Dutch History. During my time at IJsfontein I was responsible for co-designing and programming a number of exhibits for this exhibition.
Let’s Play!
Some exhibits are aimed more at creating awareness and challenge you to think about the time period you find yourself in. Other games allow you to put yourself in the shoes of people that lived back then :
Factory Game
This game is about the industrialization in the 19th century. Not only adults worked in the factories but children did too. What was it like? You’re standing in front of a factory chimney. In front of you is a heavy box full of pottery that needs to go into the oven. Your control the game with this box. Will you be able to finish your work on time?
Pack Hunting
This game takes you very far back in time. You’re a hunter in the Stone Age and you are participating in a pack hunt. You go on a hunt together with your fellow tribesmen. You are standing in a forest is a marsh (on a special pressure plate). Run! The faster you go, the closer you get to the deer. Look out, don’t get too close. The deer will run the other way before you know it.
Atlas Maior
Browse digitally through the famous Atlas Maior, a monument included in the Canon of Dutch history. Zoom in endlessly and see all the little details of the atlas, right up to the drawings of fish swimming in the oceans.
This is just a small selection of the in total 22 games that we created for this hall. In other games you may learn for example the order in which you need to load a musket or how to write on a wax tablet. Will you be able to convert unbelievers into Christians?
This exhibition was winner of the Museums+Heritage Awards 2018
