In October 2021, Imperial War Museum London opened the Second World War Gallery. I developed five interactives for this exhibition.

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'Code Breaker Enigma' is a dual screen interactive, designed and developed to look like a real-life Enigma machine used by the German Army. The bottom screen is a touch screen, and the top screen is non-touch. The interactive is not an Enigma simulator, as that would be too complicated and time consuming for the visitor experience. Instead, the interactive leads visitors through the key stages of setting up and operating the machine and decrypting messages. It provides elements of gameplay that allows visitors to make incorrect decisions, while steering them to the correct choices. The encryption and decryption of messages does mimic the real Enigma machine.

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Visitors are taken step-by-step through a brief introduction, configuring the different settings used each day, installing the rotors into the machine, connecting the cables on the plugboard, and then setting the starting positions of each rotor. Once these are done, visitors then get to type on the Enigma keyboard to decrypt a secret message. After the message has been decrypted, successfully or unsuccessfully, visitors can find out a bit more information about how the real-life Enigma differed from the interactive they have just played.

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This interactive is installed in two locations in the gallery. Each screen is 17", 1024 x 1280 portrait resolution, chosen to match the size of the real-life Enigma machine.

Credits

Simon Kendrew: Concept, software development.

AY-PE: UI design, installation photos.

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Developed while employed as Senior Software Developer at AY-PE.