Keywords: Minecraft, Silicon Valley opening credits, Fortnite, Marioworld, Astro Bot

Here, Ilford is reimagined as a playable map. The streets are made of pixelated cobblestones; the parks levitate on floating islands; gravity glitches from time to time, just for fun. Buildings morph and respawn at random – one moment a candy-coloured skyscraper, the next a Minecraft-like maze of blocks.

NPCs (non-player characters) are friendly Ilford locals reprogrammed with new personalities – an old fishmonger now doubles as a boss battle chef tossing fish tacos. Players move freely through biomes: Digital Forests, Silicon Marketplaces, and the Platforming Tower – a spiralling skyscraper of shifting floors and jump puzzles. Power-ups are earned by helping others, completing ‘civic quests’, and collecting fragments of lost memories from Ilford’s real past. The game evolves with every choice, making it a living multiplayer myth.

This universe is influenced by video game culture, and visual aesthetics draw inspiration from the animated movie Wreck-It Ralph.

The Video Game Universe is one of the worlds imagined by Studio Gil as part of their billboard commission, The Ilford multiverse.