Wikipedia is a marvellous fount of knowledge. A dedicated website with millions upon millions of articles, all detailing the history of the world and its many parts, and delivering that knowledge free to users. It’s moreish by design; you start off enquiring about a particular topic, then find yourself following hyperlinks until you’re finding answers to the secrets of the universe. Thanks to developer Maya Claire, you can now perform your own Wikipedia deep dives in a more immersive sense, in a new game known as Museum of All Things, newly-released on itch.io.
In Museum of All Things, you begin a quiet journey in a barebones museum space. Atmospheric music plays you onward, as you take steps towards a variety of exhibits themed after space, culture, people, or technology. There are no real goals in this game. You don’t have to explore anything. What’s it’s really about is curiosity, forging forward through exhibit after exhibit, tracking down new knowledge, reading and seeing more about the world.
This game has been created by “downloading text and images from Wikipedia and Wikipedia Commons” with these sources remixed into an explorable museum. Wandering into the “culture” section, you might eventually find a doorway into “fiction” then “film”, where you’ll see custom-made exhibits spotlighting images and text about history, as written on Wikipedia.
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It’s a lot like falling down a rabbit hole, with the simulation allowing you to journey ever-onwards in a museum of expanding rooms. Turn left, and you might stumble into “The History of American Cinema”, then “Australian cinema.” And once you’ve learned all you want to know, and the many branching pathways ahead start to lack appeal, you can revisit the lobby, and pursue some new quest for knowledge.
Even without bounds, Museum of All Things remains compelling, particularly if you’ve got any sort of curiosity about the world. Of course, I want to know more about Danny Devito when I spot his sign in the People exhibit. And if that leads into a room marked ‘Matilda‘ or Warner Bros. Pictures, then I’ll take those routes to find more.
Even with no strict bounds, I found myself wandering the corridors of this virtual museum for hours. In the end, I made it my own game: try to reach the doors of topics I was interested in. My first goal was to find mention of Top Gun – because why not? And while it took some time, I eventually found a plaque within the virtual Paramount Pictures exhibit, following the path of Culture > Fiction > Film > Major Film Studios.
My second goal was to find entries about the Universal Monsters, although I did struggle to find anything tangible – even in the dedicated Universal Pictures segment. I tried pursuing the doorway through Carl Laemmle’s exhibit, then through the Fiction > Fantasy > Supernatural doorways, but could scarcely find a glimpse of a Dracula, or a Wolf Man, or a Mummy. Still the quest was exciting – and along the way, I learned far more than I expected about the history of the US film industry, and its many controversies.
In that way, Museum of All Things well-reflects the nature of Wikipedia deep dives, allowing you to search for new knowledge in a way that’s arguably more engaging than simply landing on a new Wikipedia page.
Per Maya Claire, it was the frantic search for knowledge, and being able to immerse yourself in a grand, spacious realm that drove ideas for development on this newly-released game.
“The museum is greatly inspired by educational videos that I watched as a kid, and the liminal spaces produced by early CGI,” Claire said on itch.io. “I want to recapture the promise that the internet can be a place of endless learning and exploration.”
After hours wandering the museum’s halls, I’m confident in saying Claire has captured this promise and wonder intensely in Museum of All Things, creating a compelling and informative resource for those who wish to experience the world’s history in an immersive, unique realm.
Museum of All Things is available to download for free via itch.io, and it’s well worth checking out.
