Abstract
Escape Rooms are presently considered a very popular social entertainment activity, with increasing popularity in education field, since they are considered capable of stimulating the interest of players/students and enhancing learning. The combined game mechanics have led to blended forms of Escape Rooms, the Serious Escape Games (SEGs) and the hybrid type of Escape Rooms that uses Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality technology, a type that is expected to be widely used in the future. In the current study, the MillSecret is presented, a multi-player Serious Escape Game about local cultural heritage, where the players must solve a riddle about the cultural asset of watermills. MillSecret uses AR technology and it was designed to be conducted in the real-physical environment and in an informal educational context. The paper describes the game, its implementation, the playing process, and its evaluation, which aimed to study the feasibility of game conduction in outdoor settings and the views and experience of players with the game, the local cultural heritage and local history. Evaluation results reveal, among other findings, a very positive first feedback from players that allows us to further evolve the development of the game.
Highlights
In recent years, gaming, game-like applications, digital games and Serious Games (SGs) [1], and lately Escape Rooms have gained interest and are used both in the educational field [2,3] to meet teaching needs on various topics, such as history and cultural topics, chemistry, astronomy etc. and in the cultural heritage field [4]
The combined game mechanics have led to blended forms of Escape Rooms, the Serious Escape Games (SEGs) with a use of many prospects [9] and the hybrid type of Escape Rooms that uses Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) technology, a type that is expected to be widely used in the future [3,10]
Regarding the impact of the Serious Escape Game on team’s behavior, it is noticed that the game experience had positive effects and offered players multiple and valuable benefits such as new knowledge, teamwork, collaboration, enjoyment, motivation, interest etc., corresponding to learning outcomes and skills enhancement and improvement reported in other surveys [3,10,20,23,24] and confirming their results
Summary
In recent years, gaming, game-like applications, digital games and Serious Games (SGs) [1], and lately Escape Rooms have gained interest and are used both in the educational field [2,3] to meet teaching needs on various topics, such as history and cultural topics, chemistry, astronomy etc. and in the cultural heritage field [4]. In the cultural heritage field [4] In education, they are combined with game-based teaching methods and used in formal, non-formal and informal learning contexts for diverse purposes, such as socialization and teaching improvement [2,5]. A Serious Escape Game, the MillSecret, for local heritage and history will be presented in order to cover the need to engage young generations with cultural heritage and history in an attractive way [7]. MillSecret uses AR technology and it was designed to be conducted in the real-physical environment and in an informal educational context where more research is needed [4]. The evaluation of the game aimed to study the feasibility of game conduction in outdoor settings, the acceptance of if this type of game players/visitors and the views and experience of players with the game and the local cultural heritage
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