Exploring local history and cultural heritage through a mobile game

We describe our work on developing a mobile game that utilizes local history and cultural heritage in its storyline and content. The game is depicted in the town of Kemijärvi, Northern Finland, in the 1920's, and its aim is to encourage visitors and locals to get to know the town's history. The game was designed with input from history experts on the topic, and it introduces local history in the form of a narrated story, where the user has to visit the town's historical places and characters. We present the design process, the game concept and a user evaluation. As the lessons learnt and findings from our design process, we highlight the challenge of finding the balance between historical accuracy and engaging game narrative, and the importance of selecting the target user group and involving them when refining the concept and user interface design.