Paracosm is a museum-focused mobile game concept that includes archival maps and promotes mindfulness.
About this project
Many people tend to feel disoriented or uninterested when visiting museums. Especially when encountering various historical objects such as maps and coins. Our goal was to design an engaging experience that would spark people's curiosity and encourage them to explore the fascinating world of the past, delving into its origins and uncovering its secrets.
This mobile game concept originated during the "Coding DaVinci" hackathon, which aimed to create innovative products that could unlock the creative potential of our digital heritage.
My responsibilities
Team leader
UX design & prototyping
Animations
Results
Interactive prototype and concept for the mobile game
The Story
The challenge during the Coding DaVinci hackathon was to create innovative solutions for reusing and promoting a wide variety of archival collections and data, including photographs, reproductions of paintings, engravings, and more.
My team and I were particularly interested in the medieval map of Kraków from the manuscript "Liber Chronicarum", made available by the collections of the National Archives in Krakow. It's one of the oldest chronicles in the world, published in 1493. On its beautifully illustrated pages, we can see fantastic images of the world at that time, recorded by Hartmann Schedel. However, maps reveal their richness only when we examine the details up close, so we started to wonder how we could encourage viewers to look closely at the details and discover with us the hidden stories in old maps.
My team and I were particularly interested in the medieval map of Kraków from the manuscript "Liber Chronicarum", made available by the collections of the National Archives in Krakow. It's one of the oldest chronicles in the world, published in 1493. On its beautifully illustrated pages, we can see fantastic images of the world at that time, recorded by Hartmann Schedel. However, maps reveal their richness only when we examine the details up close, so we started to wonder how we could encourage viewers to look closely at the details and discover with us the hidden stories in old maps.
Original engraving from "Liber Chronicarium" with the oldest accurate map of Kraków
"It's like Where's Wolly but for museums"
We started researching various intriguing concepts and websites that aim to motivate people to explore intricate objects or maps in a similar way.
An interactive experience of "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Bosch
https://archief.ntr.nl/tuinderlusten/en.html
The "Hidden folks" game was our favorite example of the hidden-object game genre. I absolutely recommend playing :)
Mindful wandering through historical engravings
Our team's final idea was an interactive mobile game, in which users can browse maps on their phones and discover medieval cities enriched with additional elements. The game belongs to the "hidden object game" genre and involves finding thematic elements hidden on the map. Users earn points, which they can use to gain access to additional areas of the map, learn more about the history of depicted objects, discover urban legends, and collect beasts in their own bestiary. The whole experience has an additional meditative and relaxing aspect. We wanted the game to be a pleasant, calming experience and an opportunity to travel through time.
We also spent half a day together to decide how to break up the map into levels, which elements to highlight, and what kind of unique characters we need to animate for our gameplay.
The map at the beginning of the game
The final, fully uncovered version of the map with all the regions already explored
Watch the final demo of the gameplay
Reflections
I absolutely love hackathons - they challenge you to think creatively and work efficiently under constraints. There’s something incredibly rewarding about collaborating with a team to develop an idea in such a short period of time. Although we didn’t receive any awards during the event, my colleagues and I remain passionate about this concept. We're still eager to apply for a grant to bring our game to life.
