Monuments to Guilt

Monuments to Guilt is a strange video game in which you visit a virtual museum, with no objectives other than what a normal person does when visiting a normal museum: hope to discover something new and, with a little luck, to be surprised or amazed. And, considering the particular museum featured in this game, chances are you'll be plenty surprised.

Monuments to Guilt's controls are explained on the first wall of the virtual museum, which is integrated into the exhibit itself. With the WASD keys, you can move from side to side, and with the C key, you can crouch; with the right mouse button, on the other hand, you can zoom in on objects of interest. By pressing the ESC key, you can also access the options menu, from which you can change the game resolution with a single click.

As already mentioned, in Monuments to Guilt, there are no objectives, and there is no end. Once you start playing, it's up to you to decide when you've seen enough and want to leave. In any case, the truth is that exploring the entire museum from top to bottom, stopping in front of each and every one of the pieces, doesn't take more than half an hour. Luckily, it's a half hour well spent, during which you can learn a little about exclusionary design.

But what is exclusionary design? Exclusionary design is a prominent trend in large and modern cities, which consists of designing objects and furniture, such as benches, to be less comfortable, less accessible, and less appealing to the people who may want to use them. And all with the excuse of design and modernity. Inside this virtual museum, you'll find many examples of this practice, with exquisite 3D representations and detailed information about the creation and location of each bench.

Monuments to Guilt is an interesting interactive experience that will hopefully open your eyes to a design trend that's as terrible as it is absurd. Cities are filling up with objects and furniture that, instead of being designed for the people, are in fact designed to make everyone more miserable.