Livia STEFAN | Dragos GHEORGHIU
(National University of Arts Bucharest, Romania)
Keywords: location-based/Augmented Reality mobile applications, Pokemon, heritage
Abstract:
With this presentation, the authors will share their previous experience in the domain of location-based/Augmented Reality mobile applications for heritage and will propose a game-play scenario.
The research idea was to design a discovery mobile game, similar to the well-known Pokemon. This game should help players, and especially the younger ones already trained with the Pokemon game-play, discover the local heritage under the form of hidden Points-of-Interest (POIs). In an area around the heritage locations several information are superimposed over the real-life landscape, not in a chronological order, but under the form of cultural categories, e.g. HISTORY, HISTORIC ART, HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE. Depending on the location in which the player is situated, he will receive one or several informative layers. Some layers will indicate explicit POIs of objectives, while others will invite to POIs’ discovery. Here comes into scene the gaming part, i.e. these layers will provide hints to help players find the POIs, and also to reach a new gaming level with richer multimedia information (videos or small 3D reconstructions). The hints will also involve information learned from previous levels.
Unlike Pokemon which is more a gamification application with the objective to entertain the players while learning biology, the present concept scenario is more a serious game, with greater educational and cultural awareness impact.
Different challenges, e.g. the design of an engaging AR game, either single or multi-player, or which technologies best serve the objectives, can be discussed.