Cultural Heritage and Environmental Communication Through Digital Games (original) (raw)
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ISCAR 2019 e- proceedings, 2019
Cultural and historical heritage is a precious, unique and irreplaceable asset for every place in the contemporary world. This spots the responsibility on modern society to safeguard and preserve it, as well as to convey it to the next generations. The ability of digital games to act, as virtual learning environments, and as tools for the dissemination of cultural heritage, has already been extensively documented, but their use in this scientific area remains limited. This study concerns the evaluation of two digital games of historical and cultural content. These are “Secrets of the past DION” designed by “Culturplay” and “Ancient Greek Temple” developed by the “Department of Information and Education of the Acropolis Restoration Service (YSMA)”. The games were randomly selected and are addressed to adults and children. The first was designed for mobile devices and PCs and includes views of high-quality 3D reproductions of ancient Greek artefacts and the second is a free online educational digital application about the architecture of the ancient Greek temple. In order to assess these two games we used the four criteria of the Kirkpatrick evaluation model. The criteria were: Reaction, Learning, Behavior, Results. We found that the specific digital games meet the above mentioned criteria. In conclusion, it seems that digital games of cultural historical content, can be used as an intriguing learning alternative, and should be considered as useful tools for the dissemination of the cultural-historical heritage of a country.
Serious Games for and as Cultural Heritage
Contemporary methods of preserving cultural heritage rely highly on digitization and archiving as foundations for developing various virtual heritage applications. During last two decades, video games proved to be an interactive visual media able to incorporate virtual heritage in amazing and highly appealing way. At the same time, each video game represents a valuable artifact reflecting technological, socioeconomic and historical issues of its creation. Therefore, video games are an essential and integrated part of modern cultural heritage and themselves need preservation efforts. The present paper discusses video games as a modern tool for presenting cultural heritage by integrating art, storytelling and digital technology. It focuses on both entertainment games and serious games for cultural heritage and provides some illustrative examples of such games with discussing their approach and novelty. On the other hand, video games are viewed as interactive artifacts been a valuable part of modern cultural heritage, which requires specific efforts for their preservation together with technological platforms and gaming environment.
Handbook of Research on Cross-Disciplinary Uses of Gamification in Organizations, 2022
In recent years, communication and digital technologies have widely affected the cultural heritage sector, offering incredible opportunities to enhance the experiential value of heritage assets and improve cultural activities. Furthermore, another trend has gained significant attention: increasing users’ engagement through gamification. Several studies have shown the efficacy of gamification for learning achievements, and gaming is also emerging as a useful tool for touristic objectives such as marketing, dynamic engagement with users, and audience development. This chapter aims at presenting two Italian game projects for mobile devices, created to enhance and promote the cultural offer of two peculiar territories. Game design choices, objectives, and outcomes will be discussed to highlight the benefits and limits of these tools and point out the changing practices of cultural institutions and local administrations, which are showing an increasing interest in the exploitation of video games, considering them as strategic marketing tools to promote cultural heritage and tourism.
Serious Games at the Service of Cultural Heritage and Tourism
Recent advances in contemporary technologies have greatly affected everyday life. In the field of cultural heritage, ICT (Information Communication Technologies) have enabled applications for the thorough multi-dimensional geometric documentation and consequently for the realistic visualization of monuments and artifacts. At the same time the driving force of technology is the game industry. Games and especially Serious Games can be put at the service of cultural heritage, education and tourism exploiting the aforementioned advances and especially the textured three dimensional models. They constitute an attractive platform enabling people to get acquainted with the heritage treasures and get motivated to visit the place and admire the treasures live. In this paper this technological merger is explained and three interconnected applications are presented in order to prove the concept through these implementations. They concern the development of Serious Games for an archaeological site, which aim at the trivial or more specialized information dissemination about that site, while familiarizing the prospect visitor with the environment and the monuments of the site offering the possibility of virtually visiting them. Moreover the development of a virtual museum within a game development environment is presented, which provides the possibility to learn about each exhibit, but also it offers the opportunity to the user to closely examine the exhibits through rotating their three dimensional models. All these examples use realistic models produced for documentation purposes, which convey the real impression of the monuments visualized to the user
griffith . edu . au Gameplay as Interpretative Cultural Heritage
2017
This paper investigates how digital media and screen-based navigation can be utilised to provide engagement with prehistory. In light of the importance of material remains and the increased pressure of tourism, it is important to find creative solutions to physical visitation that continue to provide meaningful experiences for visitors. Rather than revisiting the more familiar questions of digital preservation and conservation, the paper explores how computer game techniques can be applied to create compelling cultural experiences. Rethinking digital interaction for cultural heritage is located in the architecture of Mnajdra, a Maltese Megalithic temple and recent work by game researchers and archaeologists. Focusing on the spatial structure of the oldest freestanding monument the paper proposes that the role of spatial navigation and praxis is central to an embodied understanding of the past. It extends on the phenomenologically inspired investigations on the Mnajdra temple by Chri...
Multimedia Experiences for Cultural Heritage
Advances in Multimedia and Interactive Technologies, 2019
The chapter analyzes, with particular regard to the Italian context, the aspects related to the fruition of cultural heritage and to the expectations of the potential public. There is often a lack of adequate media for communication, which should create interest in a non-specialist public. Multimedia and interactive technologies can be a valuable support to enhance internal and external communication for museums and cultural sites, reaching a wide audience in a differentiated and customized manner depending on their interests. The aim is to understand the link between the work of art and the geographical, physical, historical, and cultural context in which it was born, to open the horizon to a synoptic and organic understanding of heritage, contributing to its protection and educating citizens. Finally, a case study concerning the museum and territory of Mondragone (Italy) is presented.
Serious Games: Valuable Tools for Cultural Heritage
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2016
Wishing to connect cultural heritage, games and social networks, the present work describes games to be used within the framework of a European H2020 project. For the purposes of supporting the museum visit, before, during and after, 5 games were designed for social networks to accomplish user profiling, to promote the museum and the application through social network dissemination, to introduce museum items and themes and to also function as visit souvenirs. The games are also presented in a generic framework for games in cultural heritage, which has been used successfully in the past.
Developing Serious Games for Cultural Heritage: A State-of-the-Art Review
2010
"Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented."
2023
The overwhelming growth and popularity of mobile devices and games have motivated initiatives to explore mobile and augmented reality to bring the physical and virtual together. While several domains have been the recipient of such focus, particular importance has been placed on the cultural heritage (CH) field, with examples demonstrating the promise of location-based games (LBGs) at enhancing the CH experience aimed at promoting awareness. Games like Pokémon GO have exacerbated the appeal of LBGs, showing that they can be as popular as blockbuster video games. However, as much potential as LBGs have in raising CH awareness, they can be challenging to build because, unlike their commercial counterparts, their primary aim is learning, emphasizing the cultural significance of the real-world location rather than augmented assets. With limited research that explicitly identifies elements in creating these games in CH contexts, this work aimed to identify design practices and considerations in the design of LBGs. This work is intended for educators, researchers, instructional designers, game developers, and those in the CH field interested in exploring creative ways to embody a deeper understanding of and appreciation for CH.