Timeline

Brought to you by: Swiss National Museum

Game type: Solo-Player Game

Duration:

Used by: Swiss National Museum

Click here to play the game!

When you come to Switzerland, it's easy to focus all your attention on the delicious Swiss chocolate or the majestic mountains and lakes. But over time, you may ask yourself... Why does Switzerland have four national languages? Why is Switzerland neutral? And why is Switzerland so rich? The digital game is a tour of the Swiss History exhibition, which not only imparts fun facts but also involves a search for mysterious artifacts. What at first glance looks like a simple question quickly turns out to be a tricky challenge: The aim is to provide low-threshold access to the exhibition and to convey a deeper understanding of Swiss history in a playful way.

• How it Works

  The main interaction = finding how these objects relate to each other and where they fit in the timeline.

  Players use their individual mobile devices to explore the permanent exhibition to answer specific questions about Swiss history. Why are four national languages spoken in Switzerland? Who governs Switzerland, and how did this come about? On their way through the rooms, they collect clues from the exhibits on display and place them on a digital timeline. The web application also asks them to answer questions about the individual artifacts. But be careful—not everything is as clear-cut as it seems! You'll need to use your powers of deduction and a dose of curiosity to unravel a piece of Swiss history.

  This version of the prototype focused on Switzerland's four official languages, but a future version of this app could include several missions based on various complex questions. One of the strengths of this game is that it would be relatively easy to reproduce a digital version for another museum. CMS would be easiest to make and generate content (feels intuitive and similar to a written tour).

  Could be fun to play with the timeline element and swap in other types of spectrum for history museum and art museums (e.g. true/false, realism/abstract).

• What You Need

  • Mobile device

  • Connectivity

• Who Is This For?

  Description text goes here

• How to Get Started

  Link to open-source prototype: https://github.com/FableVision/ami-landesmuseum

  If you would like to develop a new instance of Timeline, reach out to kellian@fablevision.com of FableVision Studios.

Variations

Historic London own & Gardens

Historic London own & Gardens used the game as an entry point for a new exhibit centered around a timeline for the site.

• How did you use the game?

  • As an entry point for a new exhibit about the timeline of the site.

• What was changed from the original?

  • The content focused on our site. We did ask for multiple versions of the 'timeline' so multiple people in a group could have repeat play.

• What did you like?

  • It allows would could be a passive exhibit to be engaging.

• What would you change?

  • More robust list of options.