Bruegel Game

The question

2019 marked 450 years since the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Within the overarching project The World of Bruegel, Bokrijk wanted a game route through the open-air museum park that would reinforce the accompanying exhibition, be accessible to families with children aged five and up, and reveal the contemporary relevance of Bruegel's work without losing its historical grounding.

What I made

A two-kilometre game route with ten stops. Wearing an RFID wristband, visitors collect hidden objects from The Battle Between Carnival and Lent (1559), which appear on a Bruegelesque augmented-reality hat used to play hat games. Along the way: AR games riffing on Bruegel’s playful take on head coverings, a 3D hat designer, video installations and architectural interventions.

The design process started with co-creation: together with interaction, game and product design students of LUCA School of Arts, I developed twenty conceptual and semi-functional prototypes across two teaching modules — yielding not just UX concepts but insight into how young people read Bruegel today. An art historian and Bruegel expert fed the creative team layered interpretations. From there we worked out the final route, and I coordinated a diverse team of creatives and contractors: game development (Possibly Pixels), scenography (ruimtevaarders) and industrial design (Oxykube).

What came of it

The game route stayed in use for five years, years beyond the Bruegel anniversary it was built for. An estimated 150,000 visitors played it in that time.