Play Beyond Play is a complete experience featuring game stations, imaginative game environments and workshops.
Nostalgia, amusement and advanced digital technology are brought together as we tell the story of Sweden’s computer game industry – one of the most globally widespread cultural forms. It is also an industry that is driving the development of digital technology at a rapid pace.
The Play beyond Play exhibition brings together the Swedish game industry, the findings of long-term research and experience gained from previous gaming exhibitions in one large Game Lounge. Play Beyond Play will open in two stages, the second on 6 October 2018.
Examples of games in the exhibition
One part of the exhibition features a room where visitors can try the very latest in gaming technology: HoloLens. What does it feel like to play in a ‘mixed reality’? With HoloLens, reality is enhanced, bringing together people, places and objects from both the physical and the digital worlds. Unlike traditional games, HoloLens makes use of the existing room, scanning the environment and adapting the game to fit into it.
With HoloLens, you can hunt space characters who sneak in behind the walls, and use your newly-acquired x-ray vision and many other amazing effects. In the RoboRaid game – the world’s first mixed-reality shooting game, you defend yourself (and the museum) from a robot invasion. Watch a video of the game: https://youtu.be/Hf9qkURqtbM
Opening hours for HoloLens
HoloLens is situated in a separate room in the exhibition, where our museum hosts will help you. HoloLens is free, but you need to book a time slot in the entrance. Please note that the number of slots available are limited.
Mon – Fri: 12 noon – 4 pm
Sat – Sun: 10.30 am – 12 noon and 1 pm – 4.30 pm
Other games to play in the exhibition
- Mirror’s Edge
- Star Stable
- Unravel
- Overcooked
- Star Wars Battlefront 2
- Liyla and the Shadows of War
- Never Alone
- Shelter 2
In Swedish-developed Shelter 2, the player plays the role of a lynx who is caring for her kittens, protecting them from danger and teaching them to catch their prey. This is a so-called ‘open world’ game with a focus on survival, and it can be controlled using eye tracking. This feature makes the game accessible to people with a range of functional impairments.
Liyla is an Israeli game inspired by the war in Gaza, where the player follows a father’s efforts to take his daughter to safety away from the horrors of the conflict.
The games featured in the exhibition will be changed and replaced on an ongoing basis during the period of the exhibition.
If you are into nostalgia
Play Beyond Play also features exhibits from gaming history, such as the Saab D2 (Sweden’s first transistor-equipped computer, on which one of the country’s first computer games was created) and classic machines such as the Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari Pong, Atari 2600 and Amiga 500.
Those who remember the Dactyl Nightmare VR game, which was a common fixture in arcades back in the early 1990s, now have the chance to revisit those times thanks to an emulation of that game.
You can also try out the ‘Virtuality 1000CS’ – the first gaming machine in which the player could experience VR – and play the Space Invaders arcade game.
VR lab in the weekends in the autumn
The VR lab is closed for the summer and opens again in September. Learn more about Virtual Reality, what it is used for and what might be in the future. Children and adults are also welcome to try out a fun game where you take the lift up to the roof tops of a scyscraper and balance on a plank high up in the air.
Learn more about the culture of cosplay
In the exhibition, you can also explore the cosplay culture, which originated in Japan. The name is an abbreviation of ‘Costume Play’, where cosplayers dress up in costumes which transform them into favourite characters from games or animated films. Among others, the exhibition includes an interpretation of a Tau Commander’s costume (from Warhammer 40,000).
The exhibition will expand in the autumn
The second stage of Play Beyond Play will open on 6 October 2018, where spatial, technological and interactive gaming experiences will enable you to step inside, experience, test and understand a variety of game worlds. With this expansion of the exhibition, Play Beyond Play will take over the entire fourth floor of the museum, converting it into one huge Game Lounge.