Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MEMENTOES (iMmersive gamEs for Museums as vehicles to Engage visiTOrs in Empathetic reSponses)
Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2025-09-30
Both, museums and video games are scientifically validated empathy-creation tools. Museum experts have long realized that historical eyewitness accounts can be embedded into everyday items and places, increasing their significance as mementos of past atrocities and historical injustices. Such practices are also embedded in several storytelling frameworks employed in highly successful, narrative-driven commercial games, particularly those exploring thought-provoking themes. However, whereas museums designed to educate and preserve the memory of such events are being recognized for their potential to act as symbolic policies for transitional justice, the potential of video games as digital works inspired by the unique CH assets curated in such spaces remains unexplored territory. In this context, MEMENTOES aims to:
- Combine the design philosophies of museum exhibition spaces with storytelling concepts used in video games to facilitate historical empathy through meaningful play.
- Develop three digital games as evidence of the proposed framework, each thoughtfully exploring a different historical tragedy or injustice, and inspired by actual memories, eyewitness accounts and personal items from museum collections.
- Develop evidence on video games as digital tools to expand the responsibility of cultural institutions to spread and preserve memories of historical injustices, and explore the ties between perspectives and actions of people in the past within current modern society.
MEMENTOES initiated the Games for Culture Cluster (GCC), a network of EU projects to provide evidence on the use of games as a vehicle to benefit society and increase games efficiency in promoting learning, business development, social cohesion and creativity.
Emphasis was given to the co-design and co-creation of the games among museum curators, technology providers and game developers, to bring together historical artefacts and their stories, with game storytelling and mechanics. The aim of the games is twofold: entertainment and learning.
With technological advances in the domains of high-quality digitisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for game production, Virtual Reality and accessible interaction techniques, MEMENTOES delivered unique and accessible gaming experiences.
The social science and humanities expertise was integral to the project’s objectives, especially the focus on museums’ processes in memory studies and transitional justice. In addition, ethical activities ensured that the immersive and cutting-edge game experiences adhered to ethical and data protection principles.
- Combine the design philosophies of museum exhibition spaces with storytelling concepts used in video games to facilitate historical empathy through meaningful play.
- Develop three digital games as evidence of the proposed framework, each thoughtfully exploring a different historical tragedy or injustice, and inspired by actual memories, eyewitness accounts and personal items from museum collections.
- Develop evidence on video games as digital tools to expand the responsibility of cultural institutions to spread and preserve memories of historical injustices, and explore the ties between perspectives and actions of people in the past within current modern society.
MEMENTOES initiated the Games for Culture Cluster (GCC), a network of EU projects to provide evidence on the use of games as a vehicle to benefit society and increase games efficiency in promoting learning, business development, social cohesion and creativity.
Emphasis was given to the co-design and co-creation of the games among museum curators, technology providers and game developers, to bring together historical artefacts and their stories, with game storytelling and mechanics. The aim of the games is twofold: entertainment and learning.
With technological advances in the domains of high-quality digitisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for game production, Virtual Reality and accessible interaction techniques, MEMENTOES delivered unique and accessible gaming experiences.
The social science and humanities expertise was integral to the project’s objectives, especially the focus on museums’ processes in memory studies and transitional justice. In addition, ethical activities ensured that the immersive and cutting-edge game experiences adhered to ethical and data protection principles.
During the reporting period, 32 co-design and co-creation workshops were held among consortium partners, museums and game developers. These workshops contributed to the MEMENTOES framework, game development, and ethical and accessibility aspects. The knowledge gained was transferred to i) game design activities and documents; ii) the completed pre-production phase; iii) the production phase, which produced the first game prototypes; and iv) the games’ evaluation framework. The workshops were a valuable mechanism not only for combining museum exhibition concepts with game storytelling for empathy, but also for all aspects of game production, including emerging development and evaluation issues, identified risks with mitigation actions, and quality assurance informed by the latest research.
The MEMENTOES game pre-production was completed and reported in the Game Design Documents. Based on them, gold versions have been developed for all three games. The first game, “Gulag Diaries”, explores the life of the prisoners in the labour camps of the gulag system. The game is a 3D first-person with an environmental narrative, where the narration starts with the player following the route to the camp. The second game, namely “Those From Below”, was developed for Le Bois Du Cazier is a VR game that explores the migrants’ exploitation for profit and a disaster that took place in a former coal mine in 1956. The third game, “We Grew Up In War”, was developed for the War Childhood Museum and incorporates its collections and themes. This is a narrative-driven game which depicts the war through the eyes of children who grew up in conflict, addressing both the negative effects of the war and the children’s resilience.
Additionally, the MEMENTOES AI services were designed and developed. They were divided into four categories that can be combined and are already available as user-friendly web services: i) 3D reconstruction; ii) super-resolution on images/videos, iii) the Style-transfer on images/videos and iv) texture synthesis. The additional Game experience adaptation service was also completed. The development and testing of the MEMENTOES Accessibility SDK across all games was also completed, and a detailed report was submitted in deliverable D2.2 ‘Accessibility SDK’.
Finally, the ethical and legal activities of the project were exploited to shape the technical solutions according to the European Commission’s Ethics Guidelines.
The MEMENTOES game pre-production was completed and reported in the Game Design Documents. Based on them, gold versions have been developed for all three games. The first game, “Gulag Diaries”, explores the life of the prisoners in the labour camps of the gulag system. The game is a 3D first-person with an environmental narrative, where the narration starts with the player following the route to the camp. The second game, namely “Those From Below”, was developed for Le Bois Du Cazier is a VR game that explores the migrants’ exploitation for profit and a disaster that took place in a former coal mine in 1956. The third game, “We Grew Up In War”, was developed for the War Childhood Museum and incorporates its collections and themes. This is a narrative-driven game which depicts the war through the eyes of children who grew up in conflict, addressing both the negative effects of the war and the children’s resilience.
Additionally, the MEMENTOES AI services were designed and developed. They were divided into four categories that can be combined and are already available as user-friendly web services: i) 3D reconstruction; ii) super-resolution on images/videos, iii) the Style-transfer on images/videos and iv) texture synthesis. The additional Game experience adaptation service was also completed. The development and testing of the MEMENTOES Accessibility SDK across all games was also completed, and a detailed report was submitted in deliverable D2.2 ‘Accessibility SDK’.
Finally, the ethical and legal activities of the project were exploited to shape the technical solutions according to the European Commission’s Ethics Guidelines.
MEMENTOES produced three serious games (SGs) that blend entertainment and learning, using memorial and museum collections to foster empathetic understanding of historical predicaments and their links to contemporary society—supporting remembrance, transitional justice and social change. The games evidence interdisciplinary collaboration between museum experts and game developers, promoting replication and socio-economic growth in EU cultural industries.
The project developed AI tools for cultural heritage content. For 3D reconstruction it extended Gaussian Splatting with active learning and super-resolution, creating high-fidelity models; RL agents learned to reconstruct objects with minimal camera moves. Style transfer produced stylized 3D assets reflecting historical context; a homography pipeline extracted and rectified 2D scene parts for textures. To make game-ready assets, automated pipelines produced low-poly, UV-unwrapped meshes and transferred quality textures from high-poly reconstructions. A texture-synthesis tool generated textures from text prompts and used active learning and clustering to tune model parameters to user preferences. RL was also used for game-content adaptation, and an accessibility toolkit enabled inclusive immersive experiences.
These AI services help developers and museums digitize CH faster and cheaper; the SG framework increases games’ impact on attitudes, engagement and social change, while adaptation and accessibility broaden reach.
The project developed AI tools for cultural heritage content. For 3D reconstruction it extended Gaussian Splatting with active learning and super-resolution, creating high-fidelity models; RL agents learned to reconstruct objects with minimal camera moves. Style transfer produced stylized 3D assets reflecting historical context; a homography pipeline extracted and rectified 2D scene parts for textures. To make game-ready assets, automated pipelines produced low-poly, UV-unwrapped meshes and transferred quality textures from high-poly reconstructions. A texture-synthesis tool generated textures from text prompts and used active learning and clustering to tune model parameters to user preferences. RL was also used for game-content adaptation, and an accessibility toolkit enabled inclusive immersive experiences.
These AI services help developers and museums digitize CH faster and cheaper; the SG framework increases games’ impact on attitudes, engagement and social change, while adaptation and accessibility broaden reach.