Notgames Forum

Another article in the Treasures series: http://notgames.org/blog/2010/08/12/the-future-of-tourism.

A local company whose stuff I looked at (had the chance for a small summer job, which I had to refuse, sadly) were working on a 3D-environment of the whole city of Malmö, Sweden based on descriptions from 14xx. (The king wanted to see if there were any resources for war, so he wrote down descriptions of the whole city*, from the colour of the window sills to what sort of wood the doors were made of.) It was very interesting and I think it could really serve a purpose in education and "tourism".

_{*Well, he gave the orders...}

That would be very interesting to see. If it's done well. Which is not easy.

The really cool thing about virtual tourism, though, I think, is that the world you create doesn't need to be realistic. You can just build a place how you imagine it, not how it really was. Which opens up the medium to some very cool authoring potential.

Huh! So how was the experience as a whole? I might get it when it comes out on mac in september

I had an interesting experience years ago with the game "Traitor's gate",  a secret agent story that takes place in the Tower of London. A few years after I finished it I had the opportunity to go there in real life. And it really felt like I had been there already, because I knew exactly what the place looked like, even the parts that weren't accessible to the public (assuming the game developers modeled those areas as faithfully as the rest, of course). All in all, I think my memories of the game are much more vivid than my memories of the real place...

I liked the essay and I totally agree. I visited Knossos this summer and it was just crowded with people. This is an annoyance when you want to go around look, and it is also something that tears on the ancient remains. Still, I want to be able to explore the places.

I think videogames, like Michael said, could do wonders for this. Various 3D scanning techniques are getting better and better too, meaning you could get a very high fidelity of details in the environments. It also means that you can use the remains as a base to rebuild it like it looked. No more do you have to be satisfied with just replicating how a pillar used to look like. You can replicate entire rooms, and fill them with sounds, physics and even people!

And just like there was no need to have a "find the brick"-game or a ball court at Knossos, to make people come there. There would is no need to add "fun" activities in a virtual exhibition. Focus could instead lie on letting the "players" immerse themselves in the place.

"As a whole", it's quite awful, really. Another stupid game for young boys.
As long as you ignore the story and the gameplay, it's great. But it's sometimes difficult to do that. It hasn't been designed for that, exactly.