MUSEUM OF LOCKPICKING
Gated community
Inside Dim Bulb Games’ gallery of lockpicking mechanics, and what it might mean for games
Locksport is the art, science and YouTube phenomenon of unlocking security devices that were meant only to be opened by keys. It’s a transgressive and geeky hobby, and so perhaps it’s no surprise that videogames have attempted to represent it for decades. Since August, Dim Bulb Games’ Johnnemann Nordhagen has been updating a playable museum of lockpicking, which you can visit for a price of your choosing on dimbulbgames.itch.io.
What was the impetus for the project?
Natalie Clayton, one of the writers for Rock Paper Shotgun, just tweeted ‘a museum of virtual fishing mechanics’, or something like that. And I said, this should absolutely exist. It would be wonderful if there was one for conversation mechanics, and lockpicking, and hacking – that would be so useful for developers. I chose lockpicking because I thought there were relatively few games with it. It turns out there are way more than I assumed, but it’s been fun anyway.