Dive in the Past: A Serious Game to Promote the Underwater Cultural Heritage of the Mediterranean Sea

In the last decades, the popularity of video games has been increasing thanks to their unique ability to engage their audience and create empathy. Among them, serious games have additional purposes besides entertainment, such as learning and behaviour change. Serious games, in fact, have been successfully applied to different fields, including education, health, tourism, and cultural heritage. In this context, the paper describes a novel serious game developed for increasing awareness and promoting the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH). In particular, the paper focuses on the Dive in the Past Serious Game which allows users to simulate a virtual dive into the Mediterranean Sea to explore accurate and life-sized 3D reconstructions of underwater archaeological sites. The purpose of the game is twofold: to engage diver and non-diver tourists into a virtual interactive exploration of underwater sites through digital storytelling and challenges; to increase awareness and knowledge on Mediterranean UCH. This work has been carried out in the context of the MeDryDive project, an EU co-funded under the COSME Programme, which aims to create personalized dry dive experiences for the promotion of Mediterranean UCH sites as distinctive tourism destinations.

Automated summary

In recent decades, the popularity of video games has been on the rise due to their unique ability to engage audiences and create empathy. Serious games, which serve purposes beyond entertainment, have been successfully applied in various fields. This paper describes a new serious game aimed at increasing awareness and promoting the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH), focusing on engaging users in interactive exploration of underwater archaeological sites.