Games with Culture: Using Cultural Heritage as Game-Making Material

The document examines how young people use cultural heritage as material for making games, drawing on the EPIC-WE project, a 2023–2026 Horizon Europe initiative in which more than 400 people aged 15 to 25 produced 116 games across twelve cultural game jams held in Aarhus, Hilversum, and Óbidos. Its central argument is that game-making can become culture-making: heritage, whether tangible or intangible, can be transformed into interactive, value-driven design material. The authors distinguish between "games through culture," where heritage becomes design substance, and "games for culture," where games prompt societal dialogue, including around EU values, and they propose this framework as a heuristic for analysing youth engagement with heritage rather than as a validated model.

A distant reading of the 116 prototypes found that 102 expressed at least one EU value, with freedom appearing most often (44 percent) and human rights least often (3 percent). Democracy and the rule of law were also less common, suggesting that facilitators may need to work harder to make abstract values appealing to young players. Close readings of three games, Grind the World, Meestromen, and Criminal Fauna Identification, drew on Danish art, Dutch flood history, and Portuguese lagoon ecology, showing that these games engage players affectively and ethically.

The analysis reveals a clear division of labour between heritage types. Tangible heritage mainly shapes aesthetics and spatial design, while intangible heritage, including EU values, shapes narrative and ethical framing. Three design strategies are identified: aesthetic remediation, mechanic mapping, and narrative reauthoring. Most prototypes align with authorised heritage discourses, with only glimpses of subaltern perspectives.

The authors acknowledge limitations, including a small case sample, exclusively European settings, and the absence of longitudinal or player-centred data. They call for future player studies and cross-national research beyond Europe.