Europe in a Museum
This digital game is designed as a part of the e-book, which was prepared for Work Package 5 (WP5) of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project titled “Critical Heritages: performing and representing identities in Europe”.[1] WP5 is led by Professor Troels Myrup Christensen and researchers from Aarhus University, with Dr. Lia Galani and researchers from University of Athens, Professor Ayhan Kaya and researchers from Istanbul Bilgi University, and researchers from the Latvian Academy of Culture.
WP5 titled “Education, heritage, and identities” focuses on the role of both formal and informal education in identities. Education, heritage and identities develops best practices in the production and transmission of European heritages and identities within two sectors that face challenges in an age of immigration and globalization, namely education and cultural heritage production. It explores how European identity is shaped through formal and informal learning situations both in and outside the classroom with the purpose of enhancing school curricula and informal learning at heritage sites by integrating innovative technologies and including multicultural perspectives.
Digital games have become central to both formal and informal education. With that in mind, we explored the suitable ways of designing a game on heritage to illustrate that while tangible and intangible heritage are considered separate categories, the distinction is not rigid. In selecting and collecting the different heritage assets for EU countries, we frequently explored the UNESCO website. As the game will illustrate, heritage is a comprehensive term that encompasses music, dance, crafts, literature, arts, architecture, festivals, reenactments as well as other significant elements of national and European memory. Sometimes these elements are shared by various European countries, thus becoming a part of their shared memory. In some of cases, certain elements can be a part of European collective memory, which transcends national boundaries thereby becoming a component of European heritage and identity.
Let’s meet our explorer…
In the game “Europe in a Museum”, is the main protagonist, Liliana James. Liliana is a young, 16 year old explorer. She lives in Peru, where her parents used to live with her. As archeologists, they had to travel abroad but before they moved away permanently, they were among the archeologists who discovered the ancient city deep in the Amazonian rainforest.
The day of the discovery was the first time that Liliana had joined them on an adventure. It was her lucky day and on that day, she fell in love with their work. After that, she decided to become an explorer, and an archeologist just like her parents. Liliana had never travelled anywhere before. She had never been anywhere except for Peru due to her parents’ worries. Her parents were very protective of her because she is their only child. She respected their worries, but her dream has always been to travel to a destination that fused a continent together. Now, it is her mission to learn about every single country in the world, and to discover what our ancients left behind. Liliana believes in a bright and beautiful future for which we need to explore and learn our past.
Instructions on the game
“Europe in a Museum” is comprised of many visuals, which is significant to national cultures as well as European culture. The objective of the game is to learn the significance of these visuals through multiple choice, fill in the blanks, True or False questions. The descriptions for these visuals are located at the bottom of the screen. The descriptions were obtained from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) lists for tangible heritage and intangible heritage. If you find the correct answer, you can move to the next frame. You can check the descriptions to see if your answer is correct.
Keys To Move:
W : Jump
A: Left
D: Right
P : Pause
Let’s play the game: https://oyuncu21.itch.io/europe
[1] This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 693289.