Abstract
This paper discusses a mixed reality that intertwines two parallel spaces, a real and a virtual contemporary sculpture park. With the goal to create a game that motivated children to explore the park and engage with the artworks, we engaged with children as informants. We developed a cast of characters based on the children’s input that lived in the sculpture park. Using the characters as inspiration we created a three-act narrative, with the canonical trajectory provided as a sequential clues treasure hunt. The clues are integrated into character dialogue, with traversal and transitions reinforced through the narrative. Although the narrative and game were designed for a collaborative, multi-user, multi-device experience, the characters, narrative and experience were rapidly re-purposed for an individual game on a mobile phone. This re-purposing focused on the transitions, using dramatic narrative to reinforce and mask reality change. Our results are positive, children enjoyed the mixed reality experiences and are keen to engage in different realities. Re-purposing assets, such as characters and narratives as well as virtual spaces is effective, enabling rapid development of similar, yet very different mixed reality experiences.
Highlights
As virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies become ubiquitous, it has become increasingly important for museums and cultural institutions to exploit them in engaging children
Nintendo‟s Pokémon Go has firmly established the notion of a mixed reality experience for children within the public sphere
In considering how existing assets could be used, we explored the use of virtual Jupiter Artland for mixed reality experiences for children
Summary
As virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies become ubiquitous, it has become increasingly important for museums and cultural institutions to exploit them in engaging children. Technology is well known as an attractor that can elicit engagement between children, museums and culture (Roussou, 2004) with a range of apps developed to improve the child visitor experience (Shrikant, 2017). Mixed Reality aims to exploit the contextual space between real and virtual environments offering new ways to participate and engage. Through engaging children as informants (Druin, 2002) we aimed to develop mixed reality experiences that facilitated children‟s desire to engage in both the real and virtual, and to manufacture a willingness in participants to readily transition from one reality to another
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