Nina Luostarinen, lecturer at Humak University of Applied Sciences in Finland, shares the experiences in the Lights on! project with developing gamified apps for visitors of cultural heritage sites in Estonia and Finland.

The Finnish-Estonian project with historical tourist attractions is co-financed by the Central Baltic Programme. They will be publishing a gamified solution for 8 cultural heritage sites in Finland and Estonia in June 2018. The basic idea of the game is to meet some characters from the past with augmented reality. They give the player some tasks with what the player learns also from history and culture. Information on the project is found here and on their Facebook page.

Nina’s full presentation is to be found here, where you can also access all videos that she played during our session.

Thank you, Nina, for sharing your insights with us!

Notes:

• Lesson 1: Follow only one main idea for the game (for their game – meet a historic character, take photos with them, find something on the site with the character), define the added value and your target group jointly before starting the development.
• Lesson 2: Game/App development takes more time and money than expected plus the fast technological development
• Lesson 3: Try to use existing platforms (to prevent the necessity of downloading a native app) and do not develop your own app separately, if you do, use professionals not solely work with students, do it technically as simple as possible
• Their game will be available in English, Finnish and Estonian language. It will take 2-3 min. to download and can be used offline. Downloading is not a problem, as free wifi is available at least at centrals points of the sites, and mobile connection is good. The game links the 8 sites by rewarding the player when visiting several sights. The stories can be updated, but as such they are not changing as there are only permanent exhibits (ruins). They will promote the app with sign-posts onsite and on board of a boat (infrastructure that leads to the site), webpages, social media and PR.

BalticMuseums Xchange is our series of webinars to foster the exchange of the BalticMuseums project team with experts and projects around gamification, app development and more for touristic attractions. This recording was made of the online session on 03 April 2018.