The wait is over... IWM is excited to reveal its set of collection items, specially selected to spark imagination and inspire your creative war and conflict-based game ideas.
How it works:
- The objects and stories below are supplied to inspire ideas for innovative war video games.
- You must select ONE ITEM ONLY to build your game idea around.
- How you choose to interpret the item and its story is up to you. We are interested in thought-provoking and lateral interpretations so long as they are rationalised, and topics are handled in a sensitive manner.
- When designing your game, remember this competition invites entries exploring unexpected and under-explored stories of conflict.
- At submission, you will be asked how your game idea has been inspired by your selected item. Be prepared for this!
- When you are ready, please submit your entries via the War Games Jam itch.io page here.
- Please ensure you have read the jam guidelines, judging criteria and terms & conditions before submitting your game.
A note on how to use IWM collections items:
- IWM has selected the following collection items to inspire ideas for innovative war video games.
- Items do not have to feature in-game and can be treated purely as inspiration.
- Images can be used as a visual reference and the object may be featured in-game or as part of your game concept entry, however the original asset cannot be manipulated or altered in any way. Any games or game concepts which feature altered versions of IWM collection items will unfortunately be disqualified.
- Collection item images can be supplied in low-res under IWM’s non-commercial license and are available upon request.
- Items must be handled in an ethical and sensitive manner.
- If you do intend on including images in-game, please read our policy on usage here.
Good luck with your entry!
IWM Collection items
1. Albert-Bapaume Road, 1918 by Richard Carline
Warfare is a product of human conflicts, but usually takes place in the natural world. Hills, woods, fields, and rivers define and shape the course of the fighting, and armed forces continuously reshape the environment to bolster their defences or prepare their offensives. In the thick of battle, exploding shells and bombs crater the ground, and the burial of those killed in action sees the war dead become one with the earth.
This painting by Richard Carline shows a portion of the Somme battlefield, scene of heavy fighting in France during the First World War. With the frontline having moved, lorries trundle along the Albert-Bapaume road, and tents have sprouted by the roadside. In the fields white chalk, thrown up wherever trenches were dug, marks the former frontline. On the ridgeline in the distance stands a shattered wood of shell-stripped tree trunks. In the foreground, a grave marker reminds us that this battlefield is thickly strewn with the dead.
Games build virtual worlds as battlefields on which to play out stories of war and conflict, but can games do more to explore how war shapes the natural world?
2. Facial prosthetic
These facial prosthetics were made during the First World War, for soldiers who had been disfigured by facial injuries. They reflect the devastating effects of bullets and shrapnel, the efforts made to mitigate these effects, and the unique social and psychological harm suffered by wounded soldiers with facial disfigurements.
The essence of war is violence, and war games frequently have the player engage in simulated violence, killing and wounding enemy characters or other players. Sometimes in-game deaths are rendered in gruesome detail. Yet the in-game wounds the player inflicts and receives are often of no real consequence, sometimes even healing automatically. How might a game engage with the long term consequences of a disabling or disfiguring injury?
Currently on display in IWM's War Games exhibition.
3. Violin, with bow and case ('The Western Front Violin')
This violin was crafted in 1983 from the wood of trees growing on former First World War battlefields of the Western Front in France and Belgium. On being felled, the trees were found to be more than eighty years old, indicating that their roots had survived the devastation of the war. This ‘Western Front Violin’ was the idea of Kenneth Popplewell, a professional violinist, and intended as a memorial to those who died during the First World War. Lent to the Imperial War Museum, the violin was frequently played at commemorative events at the museum, including on Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Following Popplewell’s death, it was donated to the museum.
Games are works of creativity; they combine their designers’ and artists’ technical skill and aesthetic judgment. A well-designed game also allow players to express themselves through their play style, giving an outlet for their inventiveness and creativity. How might this creativity be harnessed to tell a true story about war and conflict?
4. The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28th June 1919 by William Orpen
In June 1919 artist Sir William Orpen was present at the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, for the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This document, signed by representatives of Germany, France, Britain, the United States, and numerous other countries, brought the First World War to a formal end.
Orpen was a seasoned war artist and had spent time at the front line, witnessing the suffering of troops firsthand. During his time at Versailles, he was disgusted by the vanity and preening self-aggrandisement of the various politicians. In painting the scene, he deliberately drew these men – some of the most powerful in the world at that moment – as small figures, dwarfed by the absurd splendour of the Palace around them. Orpen intended this work to carry a bitter, satirical edge. The Treaty of Versailles is now mostly remembered for helping to create economic and social tensions that would encourage the rise of extremist politicians, such as the Nazis, in interwar Germany.
Strategy games frequently have the player engage in ruthless diplomacy in pursuit of victory. Might a game, set in the contemporary world, have the power to cut contemporary political figures down to size?
5. The Supermarine Spitfire
This Supermarine Spitfire, serial R6915, was flown by a British Royal Air Force (RAF) squadron during the 1940 Battle of Britain. At the hands of thirteen different pilots, this aircraft mounted 57 sorties during the battle. It destroyed and damaged numerous enemy aircraft. The Spitfire is an aircraft that has transcended its status as a mere aircraft. It has become an icon of Britain’s experience of the Second World War, and even of Britain’s national identity.
Yet this Spitfire also reflects the diversity of the RAF's Fighter Command during the battle - of R6915's thirteen pilots, two were Polish, and two were American, while R6915's most successful pilot, Noel Agazarian, was British with French and Armenian parents. Of these thirteen pilots, only six survived the war.
Flight simulators have been an enduringly popular genre of video game, and modern software offers extraordinarily detailed recreations of aircraft and highly realistic physical simulation. But how might a game engage with powerful symbols of conflict and nationhood, such as the Spitfire, while also revealing the human experiences that underlie them?
Currently on display in IWM London's Atrium.
6. Cyril McCann model
We often image that war is confined to battlefields, but war reaches deeply into the home lives of civilians, affecting every aspect of life from food to sleep.
This model was built by modelmaker Cyril McCann for the Imperial War Museum. It depicts the house in south London in which his future wife Betty Allpress lived, with her sisters and mother, during the Second World War. The model is replete with details reflecting the war’s intrusion into daily life, ranging from the bomb shelter in the back garden, the fire bucket in the hallway, and the blackout curtains shrouding windows crisscrossed with blast tape.
Games increasingly recognise that the experience of war is not confined to battlefields, or to the combat experiences of predominantly male soldiers, sailors and aviators. How might a game take a domestic setting – like a home, shop, school or hospital – and explore how war affects civilian life?
Currently on display at IWM London.
7. Guardian lioness
This is a guardian lioness, carved from chalk, by a member of the Chinese Labour Corps. The Chinese Labour Corps were recruited in China to carry out labour tasks behind the British and French front line in France and Belgium during the First World War, and so free up military manpower for combat. For many of these Chinese labourers, this was their first experience of travel to Europe. Likewise for British, French and Belgian troops, meeting members of the Chinese Labour Corps will often have been their first encounter with Chinese people.
How might a game explore the cultural exchange experienced by members of units like the Chinese Labour Corps, and the British and French personnel who came into contact with them?
Currently on display in IWM London's First World War Galleries.
8. A White Poppy
The red poppy, a frequent sight on the battlefields of the First World War, has become a widely recognised symbol of Remembrance, and paper poppies produced by the Royal British Legion are still worn by many people every November. The power of the poppy’s symbolism – and the perception that the red poppy carries militaristic or nationalistic political connotations – has prompted the creation of explicitly anti-war symbols. In the 1930s, the pacifist Peace Pledge Union distributed white poppies, such as this example, which expressed their opposition to war.
Symbols are powerful; wearing a white poppy – or any poppy other than the traditional red – has sometimes resulted in the wearer being accused of a lack of patriotism or respect. But symbols can also shift their meaning over time; how might games interrogate the meanings of the symbols of war, and of protest?
9. Accordion
This accordion belonged to Debbie Handy and was played by her during protests between 1982 and 1984 at RAF Greenham Common, a UK airbase where, from the early 1980s, US nuclear cruise missiles were deployed. The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, established by anti-nuclear protestors in 1981, maintained a protest presence at Greenham Common for nineteen years, until 2000.
Video games often exult in the visual pleasure of destruction, violence and mayhem. But how might they engage with the very different dynamics – of solidarity, resistance, and the principled opposition to war and conflict - expressed by this accordion?
10. Sergeant-Major Flora Sandes and troops in Serbia
Flora Sandes was a British woman born in 1876. She’s depicted in this miniature diorama. When the Imperial War Museum opened in 1920, models and dioramas were a popular way to evoke historic events for visitors.
In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, Sandes went to Serbia with a unit of the St John Ambulance, where she tended the wounded of the Serbian Army. Sandes was determined to seek a more active role in the fighting. After joining the Serbian Red Cross, she worked with the ambulance detachment of a Serbian infantry regiment. As the Serbian Army withdrew through Albania amid heavy fighting, and the rest of the ambulance staff having fled or been killed, Sandes was enrolled as a soldier. In hand-to-hand fighting in 1916, Sandes was badly wounded by a grenade. Unable to resume frontline service, Sandes spent the rest of the war running a hospital and fundraising for the Serbian Army.
Video games about war tend to focus on male protagonists, as soldiers or commanders. In recent years, more war games have included playable female combatants. But can games do more to explore women’s experiences of war and conflict?
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