[Media Release] ACM makes main transfer into the world of Asian video games: Let’s PLAY!

Play takes centre stage this September on the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM). Opening on 5 September (Friday) and in celebration of Singapore’s sixtieth anniversary of independence, Let’s Play! The Artwork and Design of Asian Video games brings collectively greater than 150 artworks to disclose how video games have formed tradition, id, and neighborhood for 1000’s of years. The museum’s first “playable” exhibition, guests could make strikes, take a look at their wits, and relive gaming historical past by way of interactives, out of doors installations, and newly commissioned works by modern designers.

Mr Clement Onn, Director, ACM and Peranakan Museum, says, “Video games are central to social life—greater than pastimes, they foster mind, social cohesion, creativity, and ethical reflection. Let’s Play! is about extra than simply enjoyable. It invitations guests to mirror on the important function video games play in our tradition. Lots of the video games on show have been a part of our shared expertise for generations – accessible to all, but marked by intricate craftsmanship and ingenious mechanics that mirror how we expect, work together, and categorical ourselves.

We’re deeply grateful to the faculties, neighborhood companions, and native sport organisations whose help brings the exhibition’s playable parts and sense of neighborhood to life. We hope that Let’s Play! fosters cultural exchanges within the area, and reveals how video games with lengthy, wealthy histories stay alive and significant in the present day.”

Artwork of play throughout cultures

Introduced in 5 thematic sections, the exhibition options classics corresponding to chess, chaupar, weiqi, xiangqi, shogi, carrom, mahjong, congkak and extra, which reveal how play, in all its varieties, stays a significant and enduring a part of human life.

From the traditional to the modern, the exhibition explores humanity’s deep-rooted impulse to play whereas tracing the often-overlooked origins of acquainted video games. Chess, for instance, developed from the Indian sport chaturanga, a sixth-century technique sport. Alongside weiqi and xiangqi, it was as soon as celebrated as a instrument for psychological self-discipline, cultivating persistence, foresight, and resilience – virtues related to rulers and students. At the moment, these video games are recognised as “thoughts sports activities”, supported domestically by skilled associations just like the Singapore Weiqi Affiliation, Singapore Xiangqi Normal Affiliation, and the Singapore Chess Federation.

A nineteenth-century figural chess set from Thailand, carved in ivory as human and animal varieties, exemplifies how such video games have been reimagined by way of native traditions of design and craftsmanship.

The exhibition additionally highlights the highly effective methods by which video games have mirrored societies and formed beliefs. The Indian sport gyan chaupar —the precursor of Snakes and Ladders — supplied a metaphor for all times’s uncertainties and rewards, and was used variously for playing, divination, educating, and storytelling. Chaupar, one other standard Indian race sport relationship to across the fifteenth century, balanced talent and probability in ways in which proceed in its fashionable descendants, corresponding to ludo, parcheesi, and aeroplane chess.

Equally highly effective are the methods video games have introduced communities collectively. Originating in West Asia or East Africa, congkak and its variants have been performed throughout island Southeast Asia for hundreds of years. Guests will encounter a 120-year-old congkak board from Seberang Perai, Malaysia, which was the primary of its form to enter Singapore’s Nationwide Assortment. As soon as performed in houses and village areas, congkak has additionally taken on ritual significance, from funerary vigils in components of Indonesia to neighborhood gatherings within the Maldives and Madagascar.

The journey continues with mahjong, which developed in nineteenth-century southern China from the cardboard sport madiao. Shortly turning into a fixture of city social life, mahjong unfold throughout the globe, taking root in diasporic communities and adapting to new cultural contexts. These transformations reveal how video games carry id throughout borders whereas regularly reshaping themselves in imaginative methods.

Play within the fashionable world

At the moment, video games proceed to evolve, shaping fields from know-how and diplomacy to modern design. They’ve change into extremely seen platforms for innovation, most notably within the discipline of synthetic intelligence. From AlphaGo’s celebrated victory over South Korean champion Lee Sedol in 2016 to the common use of SenseRobots in elite coaching, AI has remodeled video games into testbeds for human–machine interplay.

Video games like chess and go have additionally advanced into skilled competitions that draw worldwide audiences. Singapore’s internet hosting of the first ING Cup finals within the Nineteen Eighties — which impressed the 2025 award-winning Korean movie The Match – and the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 are reminders of how play continues to seize worldwide consideration and nationwide satisfaction.

Increasing past the museum’s partitions, ACM may even launch ACMverse on Roblox. Gamers can discover the ACMverse and full missions to unlock unique rewards once they play onsite. By downloading the Roblox app on their smartphones, guests can participate in a guided quest that hyperlinks bodily shows to digital challenges. Guests can keep tuned to later launches corresponding to mini video games and a second quest.

Recreation design in the present day attracts on heritage, meals tradition, and concrete life, reflecting influences that join throughout cultures. Let’s Play Extra!, a playful extension of the principle exhibition, gives extra alternatives for guests to attempt completely different video games. From Jakarta Visitors to Steam Up, this communal play area mirrors the energetic ecosystem of sport cafés and participant communities, which have revived board gaming as a vibrant type of communal play. At Let’s Play Extra!, guests may also design a sport token impressed by Asian video games and watch it come to life on The Recreation Board.

Video games additionally encourage designers, artisans, and builders to create new interpretations that reply to modern issues. Climbs & Slides by Forest & Whale reimagines the Snakes and Ladders board as a three-dimensional set up, inviting reflection on the ups and downs of life.

The expertise extends outdoor with Checkmates!, an outsized playable chess set up by worldwide artists Vendy Methodos and Osheen Siva. Set towards the backdrop of the Singapore River, the work options modern reinterpretations of conventional chess items on a 7-metre-wide board, leading to a placing fusion of artwork and technique.

Supported by collaborations with colleges, native sport organisations, and neighborhood companions, alongside a variety of curator-led excursions, talks, and workshops, the exhibition invitations guests to expertise the enduring energy of play. By partaking with video games each historic and modern, audiences are inspired to see how Asia’s wealthy cultural heritage continues to form creativity, neighborhood, and connection in the present day.

Let’s Play! The Artwork and Design of Asian Video games runs from 5 September 2025 to 7 June 2026 at ACM. Admission expenses apply. For particulars, go to https://www.nhb.gov.sg/acm.