**5. The "BRENDA: digital gastronomy routes" case study**

In order to create a proof of concept, we have already employed such a scenario within one of our research projects that led to the implementation of the "BRENDA: digital gastronomy routes" game publicly available on https://game.brenda.gr, which is a research-based implementation and is cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek national funds through the operational program competitiveness, entrepreneurship, and innovation, under the call RESEARCH–CREATE–INNOVATE (project code: T1EDK-05099).

The game developed targets the wide area of the Kilkis prefecture in Greece and focuses on visitors or those who wish to explore the local recipes and history. This experience is developed using state-of-the-art web-based technologies and the game is in fact a responsive database that handles the gamified elements: user progression, score, content discovery level, and media delivery. Four main components make up the game experience: the map/point of interest (POI) /questioning component, where users can explore the information, the recipe/restaurants/local products component, the score/user progression section and the storyline/user settings component.

In order to cover the main issues that arise when creating ludified content, developers have to come up with a design that balances out the required end-system functionality and the sense of "flow" described above. In that sense, transmedia content is an ideal choice and can be actively employed to provide a sound platform for the development of narratives that can be combined but at the same time can be totally different. In that sense, and in our case-study scenario, we wish to educate the player with local historical information and at the same time allow them to explore the culinary heritage that exists in the area. Normal games achieve that aim by imposing a strict content discovery approach through the player scenario that governs the experience. The current system proposes that the player can follow a specific method through the call-to-action video, but then users are free to explore the content using their own strategy.

After the call-to-action experienced at the introduction level where the user is asked to help the main character "Brenda" to discover the local recipes and history, the user can approach the task using different strategies. A typical approach supports discovering local information either via the web interface or also by using the WEB-AR scenario, where they discover local hidden information. Both those approaches enable them to gain game credit (coins), which can then be used within the recipe section to uncover local recipes by purchasing their ingredients. They get to keep the recipes forever in their book and a number of other options are also available to them. They can either cook the recipe or try it out at a local restaurant, an action that allows them to earn additional credit (coins) that can be used to reveal more recipes.

This scenario can also be played differently. The restaurant/local products purchaser can use the AR functionality to first sample the recipes and then reveal the recipes, providing a gaming route that focuses mainly on culinary information. However, as the points are not enough to reveal all the recipes, the players have at some point explore the historical information in order to discover the complete recipe collection.

Therefore, we see how a gaming scenario can functionally support ludification by employing various aspects that suit the interests of different target groups. Gamification is also present within the score/user progression section and it is communicated through the interface at the top of the screen by displaying the player's competence.
