The British Library Simulator
The British Library Simulator is a browser-based game made using Adam Le Doux’s Bitsy Game Maker. It was created in late May 2020, during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown.
The game allows players to explore a pixelated rendition of some popular areas of the British Library St Pancras building in London; by moving their avatar and interacting with other characters in the game, they can learn facts about the history of the building and discover some of the projects the library staff had been working on during the pandemic. Players could also get more information about the resources that continued to be available even while the physical library buildings were closed, like the Sound Archive and the UK Web Archive. Finally, this work provided an example of the interactive narratives the British Library is collecting as part of its work on emerging formats.
The British Library Simulator won joint first prize at the 2020 British Library Lab Staff Awards.
Blog posts and online articles mentioning The British Library Simulator:
The British Library Digital Scholarship Blog, ‘The Botish Library: developing a poetry printing machine with Python’
Museum + Heritage Advisor, ‘The British Library launches unique take on the virtual tour‘
ActuaLitté, ‘Un mini-jeu gratuit pour visiter la British Library depuis son fauteuil’
Vousnousils, ‘Mini-jeu gratuit : visitez la British Library depuis chez vous!‘
Peterals Blogg, ‘DAGENS BIBLIOTEKSLÄNK: THE BRITISH LIBRARY SIMULATOR’
The British Library Simulator was presented as part of a conference poster on ‘Creating and Archiving Electronic Literature During the Pandemic‘ at the ELO 2021 Conference and Festival: Platform (Post?) Pandemic
[poster] [poster exhibition website] [poster presentation video recording]
The British Library Simulator was included in the ELO 2021 COVID E-Lit exhibition and featured in the ‘COVID E-Lit: Digital Art During the Pandemic’ documentary presented at the Oslo Poesifilm 2021