Players encounter the six themes of the Mind the Stem Gap Manifesto – language, cultural stereotypes, role models, critical thinking, self-belief, and access to knowledge – through the game’s six levels. Each level is dedicated to a different scientific field; each level is introduced by an inspirational woman who made a difference to her field, accompanying players like a tour guide through their life stories: Marie Skłodowska Curie in chemistry, Ada Lovelace and Maria Gaetana Agnesi in mathematics, philosopher Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, botanist Anna Atkins, and astronomer Annie Jump Cannon. At the end of the journey, players can sign the Mind The Stem Gap manifesto. This last, significant “leap” (mind the gap!) is a simple, concrete way of acknowledging an issue that conditions scientific development and affects us all, male and female.

Like the 23rd Triennale Milano International Exhibition Unknown Unknowns. An Introduction to Mysteries (15 July - 11 December 2022), the game’s narrative is structured around questions. In fact, it focuses on many of the same themes as the exhibition, such as the force of gravity understood as a “universal designer”, mathematics as an invisible language, and space exploration as an irrepressible human urge.

Leveraging continuity between episodes in twentieth-century Italian design and the latest digital applications, the installation is based on Roblox, an online gaming platform with 202 million monthly active users, much loved by younger people: 67 percent of its users are under sixteen, and many Roblox developers are under eighteen.