Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MEMENTOES (iMmersive gamEs for Museums as vehicles to Engage visiTOrs in Empathetic reSponses)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-10-01 bis 2023-09-30
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 thought-fully 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 is 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 will deliver unique and accessible gaming experiences.
The social science and humanities expertise is integral to the project’s objectives, especially the focus on museum’s processes in memory studies and transitional justice. In addition, ethical activities ensure that the immersive and cutting-edge game experiences adhere 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 thought-fully 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 is 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 will deliver unique and accessible gaming experiences.
The social science and humanities expertise is integral to the project’s objectives, especially the focus on museum’s processes in memory studies and transitional justice. In addition, ethical activities ensure that the immersive and cutting-edge game experiences adhere to ethical and data protection principles.
During the reporting period, a series of 28 co-design and co-creation workshops were conducted, among consortium partners, museum and game developers. These workshops, contributed to the MEMENTOES framework, game development, and ethical and accessibility aspects. The knowledge extracted, was continuously transferred to i) the game design activities and documents; ii) to the game pre-production phase, which has been completed; iii) to the production phase which is currently in progress and has already resulted in the first game prototypes and iv) to the evaluation framework of the games. The workshops will continue to work as a valuable mechanism not only to combine the concepts of museum exhibitions with the game storytelling for empathy, but also for every aspect of the game production, including emerging issues during development and evaluation; identified risks and respective mitigation actions; and quality assurance based on the latest research evidence.
The MEMENTOES game pre-production was completed and reported in the Game Design Documents. Based on them, prototypes have been developed for all three games. The first game “The working man” explores the life of the prisoners in the labor 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 “Marcinelle 1956” is being 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 “Toys” is being developed for the War Childhood Museum and incorporates its collections and themes. This is a narrative-driven game, which depicts the war from 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. Three of them are already available and continuously updated: i) 3D reconstruction; ii) the Image-resolution and iii) the Style-transfer. The additional Game experience adaptation service is in progress. The accessibility features that will be integrated into the games have been defined and are being developed.
Ethical and legal activities of the project were enabled and will run until the end of the project.
The MEMENTOES game pre-production was completed and reported in the Game Design Documents. Based on them, prototypes have been developed for all three games. The first game “The working man” explores the life of the prisoners in the labor 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 “Marcinelle 1956” is being 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 “Toys” is being developed for the War Childhood Museum and incorporates its collections and themes. This is a narrative-driven game, which depicts the war from 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. Three of them are already available and continuously updated: i) 3D reconstruction; ii) the Image-resolution and iii) the Style-transfer. The additional Game experience adaptation service is in progress. The accessibility features that will be integrated into the games have been defined and are being developed.
Ethical and legal activities of the project were enabled and will run until the end of the project.
MEMENTOES will result in three serious games (SGs) that foster both entertainment and learning and provide meaningful experiences, based on memorial and museum collections to promote empathetic understanding of historical predicaments and their links to today’s society, for remembrance, transitional justice and social change. These games are expected to report evidence of the inter-disciplinary collaboration between museum experts and game developers to promote replication of these effects for the socio-economic growth of both EU cultural and creative industries.
MEMENTOES develops AI tools to generate game content with rigorous representations of Cultural Heritage (CH) and museum collections. First, 3D reconstruction combines NeRF and super-resolution techniques to create higher fidelity 3D models for the games. Second, style transfer is being used together with NeRF to incorporate the historical context of the CH object in an alternative 3D model to be used as a game asset, while the game environment is used to create synthetic data to extract even better 3D model. Third, RL is used for game content adaptation to support user’s progress in the game. Finally, the accessibility toolkit makes immersive game experiences accessible with inclusive design and development.
AI tools are available as services to game developers and museums to digitise CH in high-quality with reduced time and cost. SGs framework increases the impact that a game can have in the audience in terms of attitude, engagement and social change, while game content adaptation and accessibility tools widen the audience that a single game can target to.
MEMENTOES develops AI tools to generate game content with rigorous representations of Cultural Heritage (CH) and museum collections. First, 3D reconstruction combines NeRF and super-resolution techniques to create higher fidelity 3D models for the games. Second, style transfer is being used together with NeRF to incorporate the historical context of the CH object in an alternative 3D model to be used as a game asset, while the game environment is used to create synthetic data to extract even better 3D model. Third, RL is used for game content adaptation to support user’s progress in the game. Finally, the accessibility toolkit makes immersive game experiences accessible with inclusive design and development.
AI tools are available as services to game developers and museums to digitise CH in high-quality with reduced time and cost. SGs framework increases the impact that a game can have in the audience in terms of attitude, engagement and social change, while game content adaptation and accessibility tools widen the audience that a single game can target to.