Designing VR and AR gamifications for cultural heritage educational escape games

Abstract

The paper attempts to address the way augmented reality (AR) technologies for mobile devices and virtual reality (VR) techniques for head mounted devices can contribute to culture, tourism and education by designing and developing an innovative infrastructure for digital escape games offering gamified experiences on site-related literary texts. The research presented is based on work carried as part of "Escape through Culture", a joint EU and Greek Research Foundation funded project that advocates the combination of Greek cultural heritage, digital technological advancements and the implementation of innovative gamifying practices. Paper focuses on the process followed in amalgamating literary texts to synthetic 3D space, gamification and AR creating a hybrid set of escape games. The project is implemented in three distinct application levels; Desktop Mode (DeskMode Web -VR), Generic Augmented Reality Function (AR Generic) and the in-situ Augmented Reality Function (AR in-situ). Aim of the paper is to demonstrate the design perspective of the methodology followed in this integration leading to gamification.