Character Forge with the Canadian Video Game Museum

Today, most museum visitors only see the finished game. The development pipeline behind it remains largely invisible and difficult to communicate without technical jargon, long-form videos, or staff-led explanations. This creates a gap between what the public understands and the reality of game production, a complex process spanning multiple disciplines, trade-offs, and strategic decisions. 

This project proposes an interactive, location-based museum installation that reveals how games are made from a production standpoint. The experience is designed to be intuitive, educational, and repetitive within a busy public setting, while accurately reflecting the real constraints and decision-making processes behind professional game development. 

The installation focuses on the 3D character creation pipeline, presented through a series of modular, station-based interactions built in Unity. Each module highlights a key stage of production and invites visitors to engage with meaningful creative and technical decisions. Through clear cause-and-effect feedback, visitors see how choices impact readability, performance, consistency, and iteration across departments. Rather than simply presenting information, the experience demonstrates how creative intent is translated into production reality. Visual outcomes make abstract concepts tangible, supporting a wide range of ages and levels of gaming familiarity. The modular technical framework allows the museum to evolve the installation over time by introducing new prompts, assets, or mechanics without restructuring the entire system.