PIXEL PROJECT: Art & Games 2025

2025 EDITION

PIXEL PROJECT: Art & Games is a partnership between the Sainsbury Centre learning team and City College Norwich Games Design and Development department to activate the museum with play.

For the second year running Level 3 UAL Diploma students were invited to design and build games that incorporated objects from the Sainsbury Centre, offering ways to see and interact with the collection as never before. 32 students took part, and most chose to develop video games.

Course Leader Dorian Cozens said: “We encourage our game design students to look for inspiration well beyond the sphere of gaming. It has been a brilliant experience for them to work alongside Sainsbury Centre staff to turn their creative interpretations of the museum collections into playable games.”

Following a radical relaunch in 2023 the Sainsbury Centre is the first museum in the world to formally recognise the living lifeforce of art, enabling people to build relationships across a dynamic and interactive arts landscape. Pixel Project contributes to this exploration of what a museum is, and could be, and how we connect with objects from distant cultures.

Associate Artist Marnie Hardy worked with the group over 12 weeks introducing them to the art museum’s collection. She led creative workshops and individual tutorials to support the students to reimagine the galleries, or to virtually transport the objects to other places and scenarios. She said: “The project has been a wonderful two-way enquiry – we’ve all had the chance to ask questions & learn together. I loved seeing the students weave their real life encounters with objects into their game worlds. There have been some wonderfully rich outcomes.”

The students created games of several different types, from 2D platformers and puzzle games, to immersive first-person immersive 3D environments to explore, and even a simulation strategy game in which you play as the art museum curator changing the content of the gallery. A wide range of objects from the collection were selected. The Egyptian hippopotamus [306] was a popular choice, along with the pair of Mythical Beasts from China [1149 & 1157].

Lindsey Mendick’s contemporary ceramics inspired several games, including “I Think I Love You” by Rocket Wiseman. The game asks us to consider our relationship with AI, Rocket says “It’s a game about loving humanity, in a future where it’s long gone, from the perspective of something (a robot) that admires the human experience, and that is in love with an object that embodies it”. Rocket won a Young Norwich Creative Award for his work.

Learning Programme Manager Becca Sturgess said “The students really impressed us with their imaginative interpretations of the brief, their understanding of the sensitivities around working with artefacts, and their commitment to researching the cultures they were drawing from. I cannot believe how much these young people are already capable of.” Working individually the students developed their knowledge and skill working with Unreal Engine and Blender to successfully create games which museum visitors and others would be able to play.

Playtest

At the end of April 2025 we held a drop-in public Playtest event in the East End gallery at the Sainsbury Centre. Visitors were invited to play the students’ prototype games, hear about how they approached the project, and offer feedback to inform the final development of the games. We were delighted that people of all ages, and different levels of experience, enjoyed having a go at the games.

The students’ games really got everyone thinking about the collection in new ways, and having some great conversations on a wide range of subjects.

CCN Tutor Xolani Tsangela commented “Seeing the students given the opportunity to develop and share their ideas in this unique setting has left a lasting impression on me.”

Play a selection of the completed games yourself on itch.io by clicking the images on this page.

Please note, several of the games can be played online, others require you to download them. All are free of charge. If requested, the password is SainsburyCentre (one word, caps sensitive).