I finally added this 2017 article online, but I noticed the overall issue (SAA Archaeological Record) has disappeared (or URL changed).
Article is:
Champion, E. (2017). Bringing Your A-Game to Digital Archaeology: Issues with Serious Games and Virtual Heritage and What We Can Do About It. SAA Archaeological Record: Forum on Digital Games & Archaeology, Vol. 17 No.2 (special section: Video Games and Archaeology: part two issue), pp. 24-27. March issue. PDF available at https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/67358?show=full (and academia and researchgate).
My/Tatiana Estrina’s chapter “On his roles as Professor and Research Fellow” should be available to order 16 January 2025.
In:
Hui, V., Scavnicky, R., & Estrina, T. (Eds.). (2024). Architecture and Videogames: Intersecting Worlds (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003408970. [If the DOI does not work try the Routledge website.]
“This book explores and affirms the emergent symbiosis between videogames and architecture, including insights from a diverse range of disciplines.
With contributions from authorities in both architecture and videogame industries, it examines how videogames as a medium have enlightened the public about the built environments of the past, offered heightened awareness of our current urban context, and presented inspiration for the future directions of architecture. A relatively nascent medium, videogames have rapidly transitioned from cultural novelty to architectural prophet over the past 50 years. That videogames serve as an interactive proxy for the real world is merely a gateway into just how pervasive and potent the medium is in architectural praxis. If architecture is a synthesis of cultural value and videogames are a dominant cultural medium of today, how will they influence the architecture of tomorrow?
The book is split into seven sections: Cultural Artifacts, Historic Reproduction, Production Technologies, Design Pedagogy, Proxies and Representation, Bridging Worlds, and Projected Futures.”
In February I will have 2 PhD projects open for candidates to apply at this new (merged) Adelaide University- Filter “History, Heritage and Archaeology”
Radical Co-Design for Filtered Affective Digital Heritage via AR and WebXR
This project explores how technology like Augmented Reality (AR) and WebXR can enhance visitor engagement with Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM), particularly dark tourism sites such as prisons, through game design and storytelling. The project focuses on Adelaide Gaol, one of Australia’s oldest colonial buildings. By involving volunteer communities and former prisoners’ families in the radical co-design process, the research aims to develop AR-based experiences that convey personal narratives that can be filtered and tailored to visitors. Key research questions explore utilising radical co-design for dark tourism sites, whether escape-room style game design enhances engagement and how effectively content can be personalised. The project will use low-cost, open-access tools throughout, and will generate new insights applicable across the GLAM and tourism sectors.
Game Prototyping for Museums and Galleries
This project will examine the development and design of game prototypes for use in museums and galleries with content specialists to create interactive, augmented, or immersive exhibitions and/or the evaluation of these exhibitions and works. A number of methods may be considered and investigated, including Figma, ShapesXR, Blueprints, physical game demos, and other methods. Possible outcomes of the project include non-traditional research outputs as well as contributions to theoretical disciplinary knowledge.
Champion, E. (2024). Caught Between a Rock and a Ludic Place: Geography for Non-geographers via Games. In M. Morawski & S. Wolff-Seidel (Eds.), Gaming and Geography: A Multi-perspective Approach to Understanding the Impacts on Geography (Education) (pp. 49-61). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42260-7_3
Conference papers, articles, books, and blogs have already examined how aspects of cultural geography can be explored through video games. This paper will explain how games and game engines can be modded (modified) to allow players to explore aspects of GeoHumanities, in particular, place and presence, from a perspective aligned with a selection of concerns and methods in cultural geography and critical geography.
While they are increasingly popular in urban settings, digital escape rooms can be experienced physically, digitally, virtually, or in hybrid form, inside or outside (Lucarelli 2019), or a combination of both. Their potential as learning environments has been well-researched (Makri, Vlachopoulos, and Martina 2021; Charlo 2022), as has their potential for a range of domains: engaging audiences with museum and gallery collections (Smith 2017; Antoniou, Dejonai, and Lepouras 2019; Back et al. 2019; Schaffman 2017), showcasing tourism attractions (Pakhalov and Rozhkova 2020) or even visualising big data (Lior 2020).
They have also been used to test educational techniques (McFadden and Porter 2018; Karageorgiou, Mavrommati, and Fotaris 2019; Pozo-Sánchez, Lampropoulos, and López-Belmonte 2022) and allow the training of unlikely skills and concepts, such as computer programming (Yllana-Prieto, González-Gómez, and Jeong 2023). They can integrate analogue and digital content (Krekhov et al. 2021), exist purely in the virtual realm (Pozo-Sánchez, Lampropoulos, and López-Belmonte 2022), or combine human-driven, mechanical or “smart” interaction and sensory devices (Karageorgiou et al. 2021).
But what makes a creative digital escape room? How can creative experiences be shared? How can creative content be explored and appreciated? How can creative decision-making, insight, and teamwork be fostered and encouraged? Are there digital escape rooms that allow themselves to be creatively reframed, reconfigured, or otherwise modified or extended?
We are equally open to submissions on hybrid (digital and physical) escape rooms, virtual escape rooms, and escape rooms that redefine, provoke or extend stereotypes and conventions of escape room design.
Examples include but are not limited to:
Creative content, creative design, creative user input, or creative experiences arising from digital escape room design;
The implications of different genres, platforms, equipment or the mode of delivery on creative engagement;
Trends, relationships, and influences relating to digital escape room design;
The dynamic relationships between tools, interaction, surroundings, and environment;
Design tools and design methods;
Historical, pedagogical, and/or auto-ethnographic accounts of digital escape rooms;
Critical reflections and interventions on the relationship of digital escape rooms, changing social phenomena, culture, and creativity;
Accounts and analyses of engagement and evaluation of digital escape room experiences.
Submission requirements:
Submission to this special issue is a two-stage process. Authors interested in contributing are invited to submit an extended abstract (500 words) for review. The extended abstract should include the following information: (1) Name of author(s) with email addresses and affiliation, if applicable, (2) Title of the paper, (3) Body of the abstract, (4) Preliminary bibliography, (5) Short bio(s). Please email abstracts directly to the editors listed below. Authors whose abstracts are accepted will then be invited to submit a full paper (up to 7000 words). Full papers will then be double blind peer reviewed for acceptance into the special issue. Note that acceptance of an abstract alone does not imply acceptance for publication in the journal. Upon acceptance of the abstract, you will be sent further authors’ guidelines based on the Digital Creativity guidelines (Instructions for Authors) at https://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/NDCR.
Reference
Important Dates
Abstracts due: January 13, 2025;
Full papers due: March 31, 2025 – full essays due via ScholarOne;
Final versions due: June 30, 2025– deadline for final/revised articles;
Antoniou, Angeliki, Marios Ilias Dejonai, and George Lepouras. 2019. ‘Museum escape’: A game to increase museum visibility. Paper presented at the Games and Learning Alliance: 8th International Conference, GALA 2019, Athens, Greece, November 27–29, 2019, Proceedings 8.
Back, Jon, Svante Back, Emma Bexell, Stefan Stanisic, and Daniel Rosqvist. 2019. The quest: An escape room inspired interactive museum exhibition. Paper presented at the Extended Abstracts of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts.
Charlo, José Carlos Piñero. 2022. “The Rise of Educational Escape Rooms: Designing Games as Formative Tasks.” In Handbook of Research on the Influence and Effectiveness of Gamification in Education, 143-63. IGI Global.
Karageorgiou, Zoi, Eirini Mavrommati, and Panagiotis Fotaris. 2019. Escape room design as a game-based learning process for STEAM education. Paper presented at the ECGBL 2019 13th European Conference on Game-Based Learning.
Karageorgiou, Zoi, Konstantinos Michalakis, Markos Konstantakis, Georgios Alexandridis, and George Caridakis. 2021. Smart Escape Rooms for Cultural Heritage: A Systematic Review. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the European Conference on Games-based Learning.
Krekhov, Andrey, Katharina Emmerich, Ronja Rotthaler, and Jens Krueger. 2021. “Puzzles Unpuzzled: Towards a Unified Taxonomy for Analog and Digital Escape Room Games.” Review of. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5 (CHI PLAY):1-24.
Lior, Solomovich. 2020. “Studying big data using virtual escape rooms.” Review of. International Journal of Advanced Statistics and IT&C for Economics and Life Sciences 10 (1):23-30.
Makri, Agoritsa, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos, and Richard A Martina. 2021. “Digital escape rooms as innovative pedagogical tools in education: A systematic literature review.” Review of. Sustainability 13 (8):4587.
McFadden, Colin, and S Porter. 2018. Augmented reality escape rooms as high-engagement educational resources. Paper presented at the ICERI2018 Proceedings.
Pakhalov, Alexander, and Natalia Rozhkova. 2020. “Escape rooms as tourist attractions: Enhancing visitors’ experience through new technologies.” Review of. Journal of Tourism, Heritage & Services Marketing (JTHSM) 6 (2):55-60.
Pozo-Sánchez, Santiago, Georgios Lampropoulos, and Jesús López-Belmonte. 2022. “Comparing Gamification Models in Higher Education Using Face-to-Face and Virtual Escape Rooms.” Review of. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research 11 (2):307-22.
Schaffman, A. 2017. “Escaping the Mundane: Using Escape Rooms in a Museum Setting.” In MuseumNext: RISK. Melbourne, Australia: MuseumNext.
Yllana-Prieto, Félix, David González-Gómez, and Jin Su Jeong. 2023. “The escape room and breakout as an aid to learning STEM contents in primary schools: an examination of the development of pre-service teachers in Spain.” Review of. Education 3-13:1-17. doi: 10.1080/03004279.2022.2163183.
Engaging with digital heritage requires understanding not only to comprehend what is simulated but also the reasons leading to its creation and curation, and how to ensure both the digital media and the significance of the cultural heritage it portrays are passed on effectively, meaningfully, and appropriately. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization defines ‘digital heritage’ to comprise of computer-based materials of enduring value some of which require active preservation strategies to maintain them for years to come.
With the proliferation of digital technologies and digital media, computer games have increasingly been seen as not only depicters of cultural heritage and platforms for virtual heritage scholarship and dissemination but also as digital cultural artefacts worthy of preservation. In this chapter, we examine how games (both digital and non-digital) can communicate cultural heritage in a galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] setting. We also consider how they can and have been used to explore, communicate, and preserve heritage and, in particular, Indigenous heritage. Despite their apparently transient and ephemeral nature, especially compared to conventional media such as books, we argue computer games can be incorporated into active preservation approaches to digital heritage. Indeed, they may be of value to cultural heritage that needs to be not only viewed but also viscerally experienced or otherwise performed.
#CFP three-day DiGRA Australia Game Studies conference 5th – 7th of February, 2025, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia. Abstracts due 4 October. Theme: “Communities of Practice and Play”. Free registration.
The explosion in the development and communication of digital humanities has seen fascinating digital visualisation projects. Some focus on slavery and massacre, such as the Monroe and Florence Work Today website, (Monroe & Florence Work Unknown), a database and mapping platform of lynching in America, Slave voyages visualized by SLADE magazine (Kahn and Bouie 2015) and in Australia the Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia 1788-1930 map, Australia. (Allam and Evershed 2019; Ryan 2019). Some focus on outright horror, others use digital technology to convey contestation and issues of ambiguity. Despite the growth and spread of these digital humanities visualisation projects, parallel and accessible examples in immersive virtual heritage are harder to find. Over the last three decades, immersive technologies (especially as “new” media) have embraced digital heritage to create showstopping instant experiences, but existing, durable examples of virtual heritage (virtual reality applied to cultural heritage) are relatively rare, and examples of difficult heritage far rarer. To review and address this gap, I will summarize dilemmas in present research on immersion, presence and immersivity; cover recent developments in virtual, augmented and mixed reality technology. Then, inspired by UNESCO charters, indigenous manifestos and ethical design principles in digital humanities, (Hepworth and Church 2018), I will attempt to formulate a theoretical framework with criteria and guidelines to help immersive environment designers address the depiction or evocation of difficult pasts.
Champion, E., & Emery, S. (2024). Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums [GLAM]-focussed Games and Gamification. In J. Nichols & B. Mehra (Eds.), Data Curation and Information Systems Design from Australasia: Implications for Cataloguing of Vernacular Knowledge in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (Vol. 54, pp. 67-83). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0065-283020240000054006.
Engaging with digital heritage requires understanding not only to comprehend what is simulated but also the reasons leading to its creation and curation, and how to ensure both the digital media and the significance of the cultural heritage it portrays are passed on effectively, meaningfully, and appropriately. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization defines ‘digital heritage’ to comprise of computer-based materials of enduring value some of which require active preservation strategies to maintain them for years to come.
With the proliferation of digital technologies and digital media, computer games have increasingly been seen as not only depicters of cultural heritage and platforms for virtual heritage scholarship and dissemination but also as digital cultural artefacts worthy of preservation. In this chapter, we examine how games (both digital and non-digital) can communicate cultural heritage in a galleries, libraries, archives, and museums [GLAM] setting. We also consider how they can and have been used to explore, communicate, and preserve heritage and, in particular, Indigenous heritage. Despite their apparently transient and ephemeral nature, especially compared to conventional media such as books, we argue computer games can be incorporated into active preservation approaches to digital heritage. Indeed, they may be of value to cultural heritage that needs to be not only viewed but also viscerally experienced or otherwise performed.
Assassin’s Creed‹ in the Classroom History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark? HAS been published by De Gruyter, on 18 December. Thanks to my co-editor Dr Juan Hiriart, and our authors.
The eCHOing project is inviting you to a lunch lecture, join us for an exciting event that explores the fascinating world of visitor experiences in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums). Photo: gunnerus.no NTNU UB
TUESDAY17 OCTOBER Hands-on Game Design Workshop, TRONDHEIM NORWAY, 09:30-14:30
Join us for an exciting event that explores the fascinating world of visitor experiences in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums).
Whether you’re a student curator, librarian, archivist, or museum enthusiast, this event is a must-attend to stay ahead in the ever-evolving GLAM landscape.
In this half-day workshop Erik Champion will help small groups of 4 brainstorm (“ideate”) ideas to create engaging games using a simplified working definition of computer games, and with the help of physical items. Although these game ideas could eventually become digital games, escape rooms, augmented or mixed reality projects, this introductory workshop will concentrate on creating and testing physical (analogue) demos and simple prototypes. Although Erik’s focus has been on history and heritage games, this workshop will be open to other types of games, but particularly on those where players can learn beyond the game, and where the game is a series of engaging challenges. You may bring your own idea for a game, or develop a game idea on the day in a group. No programming necessary.
Work in interdisciplinary groups with real life problems
Be an agent of change as your ideas will help professionals reach a wider audience for their cultural institutions!
Learn the fundamentals of serious games and why so many fail.
Discover how paper prototyping in groups can help you quickly create engaging game ideas.
Short bio for NTNU workshop
Erik Champion tutors game jam projects in South Australia at UniSA, and has hosted game design workshops in Australia, Italy, Poland, the United States, Qatar, and Finland, and co-hosted remotely a game design workshop with school children in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with Dr Juan Hiriart. He is currently working on research projects with Tencent Games and Ubisoft. He wrote Playing With The Past: Into The Future (Springer 2022), and edited the open access book Virtual Heritage: A Guide (Routledge, 2021) and has written books on the intersection between video games and cultural heritage. He has honorary appointments at Curtin, UWA, and ANU and was recently a visiting professor at the University of Jyvāskylā, Finland, a partner of the Centre of Excellence in Game Studies (https://coe-gamecult.org/).
Skills required: none.
The eCHOing project is an EU-funded programme that aims to foster collaboration through open innovation between universities and 29 cultural institutions in five European countries. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to gain valuable insights from our invited gaming guru and writer of the book PLAYING WITH THE PAST.
WEDNESDAY18 October MediaCity, Salford University, MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, UK, 15:00-19.00
This talk will examine how key challenges in digital heritage involving 3D models could be brought to life and re-opened to interpretation by game design, and how game-like interaction could also help increase the richness and immersive qualities of XR (extended reality) and virtual tourism. Can 3D models, the scholarly information surrounding them, and the involvement of the public be brought closer together? And can we harness the speed and complexity of new technologies to ensure both the data and our understanding of that data can be recorded, interpreted, and shared more fairly, openly, and democratically?
Reflective Experiences with Immersive Heritage (Difficult Digital Heritage)
Despite the growth and spread of digital humanities visualisation projects, parallel and accessible examples in immersive virtual heritage are harder to find. Over the last three decades, immersive technologies (especially as “new” media) have embraced digital heritage to create spectacular experiences, but existing and durable examples of virtual heritage (virtual reality applied to cultural heritage) are relatively rare, while examples of difficult heritage far rarer. In this talk I will summarize relevant dilemmas in presence research, and recent developments in virtual heritage, reflect on some difficult lessons learnt, and offer some recommendations as to how we could address the depiction or evocation of difficult pasts in the near future.
BIO
Erik Champion is an Enterprise Fellow at UniSA, Emeritus Professor at Curtin University, Honorary Research Fellow at UWA, and Honorary Research Professor at ANU. He has published books and papers on serious games and game mods, virtual heritage, virtual world phenomenology, digital humanities infrastructures, and architectural history.
Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space
will be released tomorrow by MIT Press.
Dr Juan Hiriart and I have a chapter in it:
Workshopping Board Games for Space Place and Culture.
Full reference:
E. Champion and J. Hiriart. Workshopping Board Games for Space Place and Culture. In: Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space, edited by C. Randl and D. M. Lasansky. MIT Press 2023. ISBN: 9780262047838.
Have been invited to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU in Trondheim to give a talk and possibly a workshop for echoing.eu (“Recovery of cultural heritage through higher education-driven open innovation”).
And it looks like I may have funds for a book launch in Bristol, a talk at Salford University (near Manchester) and a talk at Cardiff University in Wales. Still to fully organize the UK side trip though.
Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or A Stab in the Dark, an edited book with co-editor Juan Hiriart, is in process, contract sent/signed with De Gruyter…
Champion, E., & Hiriart, J. (Eds.). (2023: accepted). Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark? De Gruyter: Video games and the Humanities series.
It looks like the “Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom: History’s Playground or a Stab in the Dark?” edited book is close to the contract stage, and hopefully will be published by the end of the year…what sort of cover image do you suggest? For De Gruyter’s “Video Games and the Humanities” series (must suit their theme colour):
Since the turn of this century (and even earlier), a plethora of projects have arisen to promise us bold new interactive adventures and immersive travel into the past with digital environments (using mixed, virtual or augmented reality, as well as computer games). In Playing with the Past: Into the Future Erik Champion surveys past attempts to communicate history and heritage through virtual environments and suggests new technology and creative ideas for more engaging and educational games and virtual learning environments.
This second edition builds on and updates the first edition with new game discussions, surveys, design frameworks, and theories on how cultural heritage could be experienced in digital worlds, via museums, mobile phones, or the Metaverse. Recent games and learning environments are reviewed, with provocative discussion of new and emerging promises and challenges.
Ear Zow Digital