ArcticHubs digital ‘serious game’ – Bridging Worlds 🎮
ArcticHubs EU Horizon research project has brought four years of real discovery for our entire consortium of partners, not least here at Touch TD. We have continually had our boundaries of knowledge and comfort zones tested! Perhaps most dramatically this has occurred around the delivery of a digital game. A subject matter that in all honesty coming in to ArcticHubs project, we had limited experience around.
Foundations for a new digital game
Embracing ArcticHubs core ethos of co-creation being delivered through multiple tools and angles, the project’s digital game ‘Bridging Worlds’ is directly informed by the ongoing research on indigenous and forestry livelihoods from the Gran Sameby hub in Northern Sweden. The game concept we had in mind is more than just a form of entertainment. It is a novel method for sharing, disseminating and exploiting ongoing research findings, serving as a platform for engaging new or extended audiences about the complexities, changes and realities of a reindeer herding community in the European Arctic.
In the same vein as other innovative research dissemination tools, the game is a powerful medium for raising awareness about indigenous Sami livelihoods in the European Arctic. By leveraging the immersive and interactive nature of gaming, it underscores the potential of games as a serious medium for research dissemination and public engagement.
View our video explainer to get a rapid immersion into the ArcticHubs serious game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJqeJHml6Q
Developing the game
The game was coordinated by Touch TD and co-developed through a partnership between gaming design staff and students at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), bringing in ArcticHubs communities in Malå and Gran sameby hubs through Swedish partner organisation SLU.
By extending engagement around the creation of the game, the pilot designs and development processes has been exposed to a wider range of review and feedback, both at internal ArcticHubs meetings and externally at regional Arctic events or fora. Through these efforts we have been able to ensure that the game remains a dynamic, engaging, and informative platform that contributes to the broader goals of ArcticHubs and the communities it serves. In the formative stages of the ArcticHubs project, partners had visualised utilising the project knowledge and results to generate an interactive game presenting arctic issues and solutions in hub settings. The game was anticipated mainly as being an educational and dissemination tool. But as the design and context of the pilot iteration of the game began to take shape, with extensive opportunities for feedback and evaluation, it became apparent this process was unwrapping something more than a one-way transmission of knowledge.
In the same vein as other innovative research dissemination tools, the game is a powerful medium for raising awareness, in this pilot case about indigenous Sami livelihoods and interactions with forestry, tourism, mining and other land-use interests in the European Arctic. In leveraging the immersive and interactive nature of gaming, it underscores the potential of games as a serious medium for research dissemination and public engagement. This approach aligns with a growing trend in the research community for the development and use of ‘serious games’ concepts. These allow game players to contribute to important scientific research, and are increasingly being recognised as effective tools for communicating complex concepts and findings to a broader audience.
Transforming from just a game, into a new Ptool
As the game design had become a more complex collaborative process, it was appropriate to present a summary of development thus far to the whole ArcticHubs consortium at the annual meeting in the learning case hub around Alagna, Italy. Following that presentation and substantive dialogues regarding its content, look and design, the digital game began to further capture the imagination of local communities and researchers alike. Its structure subsequently felt more like the other Participatory (or Ptools) that have been introduced to hub locations and sectors throughout the project partnership.
As an ‘accidental Ptool’ the evolving game found a perfect home connecting in with the annual ‘Future Summit Malå’ event in Northern Sweden. In addition to sharing the game concepts with local Sami community members, ArcticHubs were also able to explain the game and the development process to two classes from local schools.
Concluding thoughts
The extended engagement and evolution of a wider participatory process around the digital game design, has allowed for greater consideration about the types of contribution an ArcticHubs serious game may make. Notably it has emerged as a novel method for sharing ongoing research findings, serving as a platform for connecting to new or extended audiences (especially amongst youth groups) with the rich cultural heritage of the Sami people and their livelihood situation in the European Arctic.
Rather than concluding as a single immediate transmission of information, the digital game development has shifted into being a rolling iterative co-creational process, that is generating wider interest in its exploitation. That interest has been shaped in to ongoing engagements with the game from Malå hub stakeholders. Additionally we have shared our experiences and encouraged international linkages made with other serious game initiatives built around research in the Arctic region – most notably with Japanese institutions and colleagues at JAMSTEC and NIPR. It seems there will be many more throws of the dice when it comes to shaping serious game ideas with Touch TD!
