Metropolitan Museum launches blockchain game that invites you to find connections between artworks

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is launching Art Links, a new game that invites participants to discover connections and common themes among artworks in the museum’s collection. This is the museum’s first Web3-based experience, a game developed using blockchain technology. Designed in collaboration with TRLab, a platform that combines art and technology, the game, which aims to offer an innovative approach to exploring the museum, is accessible via browser and designed primarily for mobile devices. Players can also collect special NFT badges and win prizes, both digital and physical. It is available on the museum’s official website: artlinks.metmuseum.org.

The game, structured in episodes, offers new challenges each week and includes more than 140 works of art from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection. After finding artistic connections or “chains” between works, players can earn free NFT badges and earn “goals” by tackling different challenges. After launch, new content will be released every Thursday at 12:01 a.m. EST, for a total of twelve weeks. Those who accumulate goals will be able to receive exclusive rewards, such as exhibition catalogs, discounts in the Met Store or private tours with museum curators.

The artworks featured in the game were selected by Destinee Filmore, associate curator of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, and an interdisciplinary team at the Met. Each chain includes at least one work from the Met’s collection of 20th- and 21st-century art, thus placing these works in a broader context.

The game features four types of connections: “Highlights,” which shows key works, artists, or movements; “Material,” which focuses on how works are made; “Emoji,” which highlights signs, symbols, and visual culture; and “Web3,” which shows how artists over time have engaged with fundamental concepts underlying the blockchain, such as randomization, security, and registries. Themes participants will discover during the 12-week game include “Objects in Disguise,” works of art made from surprising and sometimes deliberately deceptive materials; “Art x Tech,” featuring works in dialogue with technological innovation over time; and “Harlem as Muse,” featuring artists who have looked to Harlem as a subject and source of inspiration.

In each game, participants must create a chain consisting of seven artworks and six connections. The connections can be words, emoji or artwork. The chain is completed in three increasingly difficult rounds. Players have four attempts to complete each chain correctly. No prior knowledge of art history is required to play, and the game includes built-in learning moments to find out more about the work and the artist. Players can collect twelve free badges, one for each weekly chain, with opportunities to earn seven objectives linked to in-game challenges.

“This online game is an exciting new addition to the Met and a unique experience in the museum field in general,” said Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “By bringing artworks from collections across the museum, from modern and contemporary art to Asian and Egyptian art, players can expand their knowledge in a fun and engaging way. Art Links really exemplifies how the Met continues to connect audiences to ideas and to each other, while exploring emerging technologies.”

Metropolitan Museum launches blockchain game that invites you to find connections between artworks

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