Game Masters is curated by the Australian Centre for Moving Image and, with its tour to National Museums of Scotland, we have been able to highlight Scotland’s game industry. With over 90 pioneering and award winning companies, Scotland is recognised internationally as one of the top developer locations. From its hub in Dundee, developers big and small are thriving throughout the country.
In the Game Changers section of the exhibition, we feature Dundee based DMA design. One of the first Scottish developers to be recognised, DMA created some of the most innovative games of the 1990’s including Britain’s fastest selling game, Lemmings (1991), a personal favourite as it was the first computer game I played on a visit to my uncle’s house back in the early 90s shortly after its release: my sisters and I would fight over who could play first.
Also featured is DMA’s biggest success, Grand Theft Auto (1997). Brian Baglow, a former DMA employee who worked on the script of the first GTA game, has generously donated original handwritten scripts and many other objects, some of which are on show in the exhibition.
In the Indies section, there are three games from Scotland to play. Bad Hotel, awarded Best Game at the Scottish BAFTAs in 2012, is one of a small group of games developed by Edinburgh based Lucky Frame which generate music via gameplay. Glitchspace, by Dundee’s Space Budgie, is a first person programming game that’s centred on a visual programming mechanic that allows the player to experience what it is like to programme coding. And Glasgow based The Story Mechanics game The 39 Step combines cross cultural collaborations with actors, archives and publishers to create a game which has all the elements of literature, gaming and film.
