what kind of world will your actions create? serpentine’s online game makes ethics playable

a doorway into public argument

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, an online game released by Serpentine, begins with a door, a simple threshold that turns moral judgment into a playable act. Developed by artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, the interactive artwork invites players into a charged space of judgment, where every decision about who enters also reveals something about the person making it.

The premise carries a dystopian edge, but its force comes from something more intimate. This is a game about how we read one another, how quickly we decide what someone deserves, and how those decisions gather into social conditions. Brathwaite-Shirley uses the structure of play to make ethics feel close at hand, and turn a browser window into a small civic chamber where action has weight.

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Serpentine

danielle brathwaite-shirley’s ethics of participation

The project extends THE DELUSION, Brathwaite-Shirley’s multiplayer video game presented at Serpentine North from September 2025 to January 2026. That exhibition transformed the gallery into a forum for difficult conversations around polarization, censorship, and social connection. With I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, the work moves onto web and mobile to reach players wherever they encounter the pressures of online debate. Play the online game here!

Brathwaite-Shirley, a London and Berlin-based Black Trans artist, community archivist, and game designer, has built a practice around active engagement. Their work often asks audiences to do more than observe. It asks them to participate, to decide, to implicate themselves. In this Serpentine game, participation becomes a form of self-study, with each choice exposing the habits and assumptions that shape a player’s sense of justice.

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Serpentine

a soft tool inside a hard world

The world of I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT comes from Brathwaite-Shirley’s graphic novel Below the Blue Line, where every negative comment ever written online has come alive. Factions cling to their own versions of truth and justice, while language once pushed to the margins of public discourse begins to enter policy, media, and common speech.

That setup may sound bleak, but the game avoids simple despair. Its radical quality lies in the way it asks players to stay with discomfort. Characters, conspiracy agents, and ‘influencers’ approach the door with their beliefs, asking to be let in. The player’s task is direct: Who enters? Who waits outside? What kind of community begins to form from those decisions?

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Serpentine

the feed as a pressure system

Alongside these encounters, a real-time feed scrolls through the game. It draws from the aesthetics of contemporary populist politics on social media, where outrage, humor, fear, and certainty often arrive in the same visual language. The feed gives the work pace, but it also creates pressure. Players have to choose while language keeps moving around them.

The game draws on the aesthetic of early 1990s video games with its labyrinthine environments and monsters, while speaking naturally to a generation shaped by feeds and comment threads. Its references are familiar enough to feel accessible, yet the structure keeps returning to a deeper question: What happens when every act of judgment becomes part of a designed world?

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Serpentine

beyond code and wider access

Developed with Beyond Code Collective and supported by Glass Castle Foundation, the project also expands the idea of who gets to build and enter digital culture. Beyond Code works to connect learners with technological education and opportunities, a mission that gives this release an added layer of purpose. The game becomes both artwork and shareable tool, carrying critical thinking into spaces beyond the gallery.

For Serpentine, the release continues a commitment to art that travels through public platforms. The institution’s relationship with Brathwaite-Shirley moves from research and exhibition into a digital format, extending the life of the project through access, replay, and exchange. The browser becomes a site for art, but also for civic rehearsal.

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Serpentine

a living archive for difficult conversation

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT is imagined as an evolving, open-source artwork. New characters and conversations will be gathered through workshops, focus groups, and community initiatives, allowing the game to grow through contact with different publics. That living structure is central to its meaning. The work listens, absorbs, and changes.

Brathwaite-Shirley’s archive holds headlines, social media posts, testimonies from Black trans and queer communities, conversations with activists and spiritual leaders, and autobiographical notes. These materials give the game its emotional range. Satire and absurd humor sit close to real harm, while fictional encounters sharpen questions already present in public life.

I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Serpentine

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project info:

name: I DIDNT REALISE YOU THOUGHT LIKE THAT

developer: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley | @ladydangfua

gallery: Serpentine North | @serpentineuk