Secret Gaming Base: Play Again! | An Immersive Project on Gaming × Emotions × Memory

Secret Gaming Base: Play Again! is an immersive project that explores the intersection of gaming, emotions, and memory, presented at The Mills. Co‑curated by In Time Of and Mamaproduction – Perry Wah, the project approaches nostalgic arcade gaming from the perspective of craft, re‑examining its cultural and emotional significance in an ever‑changing urban landscape.
Drawing from Perry Wah’s extensive collection as a long‑time arcade machine collector and restorer, the project reconstructs a disappearing city scene shaped by vintage arcade machines and gaming devices. These machines collectively form a temporary “secret base” — a space slightly detached from everyday reality, where identities are loosened and time slows down.
In this project, the serious practice of collecting and repairing arcade machines is understood as a form of craft. Each machine carries multi‑generational memories — of repeated attempts after failure, of moments shared between friends, of youthful concentration and joy, and of a city’s collective cultural past. The collector becomes not only a player, but also a repairer and a caretaker of memory.
Secret Gaming Base: Play Again! invites visitors to momentarily set aside the expectations, productivity, and social roles of adulthood, and step into a space that allows for failure, repetition, immersion, and play. Within this environment, “playing” is re‑experienced as a medium through which emotions are processed, relationships are formed, and quiet forms of self‑repair are made possible.
Through gaming as a lived, tactile, and emotional experience, the project asks:
How can play help us reconnect with ourselves — and with the memories embedded in the city we inhabit?

Exhibition Details:
Secret Gaming Base: Play Again!
Dates: 27 March – 24 May (Closed on Mondays)
Opening Hours: 11:00 – 18:00
(Intermission: 13:30 – 14:30)
Venue: M02, M Floor, The Mills | Ito Cultural Hub
Curated by: In Time Of Curatorial Team @intimeofhk
Co‑curated by: Perry Wah @perry_wah
Collaborators: Mamaproduction, Hong Kong Arcade Club @hongkongarcadeclub