Do Orangutans Dream of Electric Bananas?
A conversation with the game designer who is teaching more great apes to play.
Dr. Hanna Wirman is a games researcher and designer in the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She currently works with the world’s most prominent orangutan conservationist, Dr. Willie Smits, to develop videogames that can be played by captive orangutans. There have been experiments in animal behavioral psychology conducted using digital game-like interfaces before, but Wirman’s games are just that—games, meant to be played autotelically, i.e. for their own sake. For fun.
