I worked with the Walters Art Museum and UCLA's Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative on an IMLS-funded project to create a game to increase public appreciation of ancient Iraq.
We developed a kiosk game for the museum (that featured minimal ramp up time and a playable experience that could last anywhere between 30 seconds to 5 minutes, depending on how hard the parent or guardian tugs on the player's shirt collar) and a longer game that was available in the museum gift shop. This take home game aimed to extend the museum experience at home, provided a more challenging level of gameplay and a deeper interaction with the tablets, museum objects and information that were featured in the game. Based on this initial 2 year project, we have begun exploring the potential of online immersive environments as a way for museums to collaborate, contribute digital objects and create a compelling experience for visitors. I think Richard has a terrific suggestion that hard-won experience and information from such projects should be aggregated so that the community can benefit. I'd be happy to share both forms of the Discover Babylon game with anyone interested, and to talk about lessons learnt, our evaluation results, what worked, what didn't and our plans for our virtual world project. Michelle Roper Director, Learning Technologies Program Federation of American Scientists 1725 DeSales St, 6th Floor Washington, DC 20036 mroper at fas.org -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Richard Urban Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 5:33 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: [MCN-L] Museum Games: From the Gallery to My Hard-drive Hi, Here's a question for those of you who are developing museum interactives, particularly museum educational games. How much are these games developed for only one setting. E.g. an in- gallery kiosk OR the web. How often are they developed for both platforms (web and gallery)? I've been looking at the games that museums share via their websites, but I expect there are many more that have been developed only for in- gallery usage & are inaccessible to everyone except on-site visitors. There are some good reasons this is the case, e.g. the in- gallery games are designed to be used with a touchscreen or other custom input interface. What are the hurdles to getting these out to a broader audience? Just thinking: 1. it might be interesting to be able to aggregate a selection of museum games to make some comparisons, conducting some focused testing (this 24hr Museum has kindly done this for online UK museum games - http://www.show.me.uk/games/games.html) 2. would people be willing to turn over executables for comparison 3. There are a number of efforts underway to preserve console and PC games. Where will the groundbreaking museum interactives end up? I'd also point museum game developers to the Values at Play/Social Impact Game Contest 2007 that just opened up this week. ( http:// valuesatplay.org/ and http://www.socialimpactgames.com/) Surely there are some museum games that qualify. Richard Urban, Doctoral Student Graduate School of Library & Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign rjurban at uiuc.edu http://isrl.uiuc.edu/~rjurban _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
