ANALYSIS AND NEWS


game is the way in which it takes the stunning architecture of the Abbey, combines it with elements from its troubled history and infuses it all with a very ghostly air. The game succeeds in transforming William Beckford’s stupendously Gothic building into a magical, mysterious place reminiscent of the best Gothic novels.’2 The third and most recent competition,


Alice’s Adventures Off the Map,’ has accompanied the British Library’s Alice in Wonderland exhibition (20 November to 2015


‘Curators select collection items to be digitised and these are provided to the participating students’


to 17 April 2016) which celebrates 150 years of the publication. The 2015 winning Off the Map entry The Wondering Lands of Alice has been created by Off Our Rockers, a team of six students from De Montfort University in Leicester. The player controls Alice through a whimsical journey in a surreal underground setting where there are a number of challenges to solve, including breaking a pile of logs and


jumping on lily pads to cross a pond. Tom Scutt, a game designer at Mudlark and one of this year’s Off the Map jury members, said this about the Off Our Rockers entry: ‘This game uses the British Library resources to great effect. Its levels, while clearly influenced by the handmade aesthetic of Little Big Planet, have a dream-like style all of their own, and are littered with wonderful touches like the faint manuscript texture visible in the light rays. The game avoids the usual Alice in Wonderland clichés, and instead has a main character true to the real-life Alice.’3


Furthermore, for the first time in the Off the Map competition’s history; The Wondering Lands of Alice game and two runner-up entries; Alice Gardens and A Curious Feeling, have been made available for visitors to play in the British Library’s exhibition gallery as part of the Alice in Wonderland exhibition.


If you are working with videogame design or creative writing students in UK universities, please do encourage them to consider entering the 2016 Off the Map competition (http://gamecity.org/projects/off-the-map/), which is associated with the British Library’s Shakespeare exhibition (15 April 2016 to 6 September 2016). The Shakespeare Off


the Map themes are The Tempest, plus castles and forests that have been used as settings in Shakespeare’s plays. We are hoping for some high quality entries and winners will be announced at the GameCity11 festival in October 2016.


Stella Wisdom is a Digital Curator at the British Library, where her role explores and promotes new methods of research using both born digital content and digitised collections


REFERENCES


Wisdom, S. (2013) Off The Map Winners Announced. British Library Digital Scholarship blog. Accessed 29 October 2015 http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital- scholarship/2013/10/off-the-map-winners-announced. html


1


Wisdom, S. (2014) Off the Map Competition Winners Announced at GameCity9 Festival. British Library Digital Scholarship blog. Accessed 29 October 2015 http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital- scholarship/2014/10/2014-off-the-map-competition- winners-announced-at-gamecity-festival.html


2


Wisdom, S. (2015) 2015 Off the Map Competition Winners Announced at GameCity10 Festival. British Library Digital Scholarship blog. Accessed 09 November 2015 http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital- scholarship/2015/10/2015-off-the-map-competition- winners-announced-at-gamecity10-festival.html


3


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