JANUS - Serious digital archaeology game integrating social customs (2012)

Summary:

The JANUS project aims to design, execute and validate the modalities for a mainstream online social game (computer or mobile device) to enhance the attraction, awareness and self-learning of scientific methods in archaeology, as a precursor to more ambitious developments.

The innovative overall approach aims to combine archaeological site visits, museum tours and

online collaboration, in order to achieve individual and shared objectives (teams of players), with a view to mastering skills and an ensemble of cultural and scientific knowledge in archaeology. As the goal was to raise public awareness of the scientific approach in

archaeology, the design had to combine two aspects: learning motivated by action, and the creation of player communities.

The major scientific advance of this project is the proposal of a generic multi-player mixed-reality game architecture that integrates different modalities while maintaining a high level of learner immersion and motivation.

The system thus supports the prospect of two major developments in the relationship between the city and its residents: the appropriation of the “story” of the city by its residents, and the scientific construction of its history (the second ultimately redounding upon the first).