Building Museum Games

An inspiring guide that demonstrates how play can transform museums, offering actionable steps alongside stories that fire the imagination. By making the process of creating games accessible to all museum professionals, the book bridges creativity and strategy. Museums are social spaces where visitors will embrace shared play as both a joyful and insightful activity. Written in a tone that is both playful and informative, this book will help museums create experiences that engage and delight audiences of all ages. Reading it might even make you laugh out loud a few times! -- Douglas Hegley * Chief Digital Officer, Metropolitan Museum of Art * In writing Building Museum Games, Kellian Adams Pletcher has done the seemingly impossible; taken the game design process and broken it down in a clear and approachable way that any museum interested in developing games can apply, regardless of experience or budget. If you have made the decision that a game is the right tool for your project, then this book will be an invaluable guide from start to finish (and beyond). Clearly written, jargon-free, and illustrated with examples from her long career, Building Museum Games is the how-to guide that the field has been missing for too long. -- Ed Rodley, Co-Founder and Principal, The Experience Alchemists Building Museum Games is an outstanding guide—smart, generous, and deeply useful. Kellian Adams Pletcher shares hard-earned insights with humor and clarity, offering museum professionals everything they need to create playful, meaningful visitor experiences. It’s not just a how-to—it’s an invitation to rethink what museum engagement can be. -- Barry Joseph * author of Making Dinosaurs Dance: A Toolkit for Digital Design in Museums * Full of powerful examples of museums using game design to create engaging experiences that are both meaningful and memorable, this book is a must read for anyone, expert or novice, who wants to create amazing museum gameplay on a budget. -- Jesse Schell * CEO of Schell Games, developer of the SECRET experience at the Children’s Museum of Houston, and author of The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses *