Exhibition: Game Changers

Discover how traditional forms of chess, billiards and mazes continue to influence designers making exciting new games today.

Running as an extension of Now Play This, Game Changers will provide an in-depth look at the creative process behind game design.



A timeline tracing how traditional forms of chess, billiards and mazes have evolved with a selection of contemporary examples – both physical and digital - will be on show for visitors to try, including:

Four regional variations of Orthogonal/Diagonal, Nova Jiang’s modified chess sets which showed at Now Play This in 2016. Inspired by traditional Bauhaus chess sets, the pieces’ physical shape indicates how they should move.

A playable installation of Zach Gage’s Really Bad Chess, a digital game that recreates chess with a random selection of pieces for each player.

Home Turf, by Ed Saperia, a distorted billiards table that combines the normal challenges of billiards with a deliberately difficult shape.

INKS by State of Play, an on-screen game within a physical pinball-style environment – derived from more traditional forms of billiards and bagatelle.

Maze, a challenging, two-player table-top maze game by sculptor Alexander Berchert.