**6. Project motivation and description**

#### **6.1 Motivation**

The TNAR project was informed by all the research findings summarised above and its objectives are their product. To summarise: firstly, the opposing ideas of what motivates player engagement with a gamified system emerged; these being either transactional metrics [16] or emotive playable moments [3]. The second consideration relates to outcome and gamified mechanism, and how their alignment can be used to simultaneously motivate engagement and deliver outcomes, with this being effectively demonstrated in the High Tea game example. The third is the tension between eliciting the pleasure of challenge and that of completion, in particular when games are played by diverse incidental audiences. The final consideration relates to the pleasure of creativity as described in Section 4, with this being potentially impactful but underexplored within the wider literature. The development of the TNAR application was then, a project to enhance understanding of the operation of these four aspects of game-playing pleasure.

#### **6.2 Description**

TNAR was a gamified augmented reality application located in the Picture Gallery, an historically significant space in Temple Newsam, a stately home near Leeds (UK). The augmented reality application used two distinct game mechanics with the aim of explaining the social and economic factors that influenced the construction and decoration of the physical space, the primary goal being the education of participants. The educational content was intended to offer context about two important characters from Temple Newsam's history; Sir Arthur Ingram, who commissioned the original construction of the Picture Gallery and his descendant, Viscount William Ingram,

who was instrumental in its renovation. This educational information is not readily available within the physical space itself.

The first games mechanic was modelled upon text-based adventures such as Planet Fall (1983), which are in turn based upon earlier adventure gamebooks like the Fighting Fantasy series. As in these, players are required to make choices based on real historical events and navigate conflicting pressures to obtain enough money to either build the picture gallery in the first place or to refurbish it. Through this means a series of historical scenarios are encountered, with the player required to make choices between different courses of action in order to progress. The challenge element derives from the imperative to navigate these historical encounters, with each choice made having repercussions and only certain paths leading to successful outcomes. The player is required to use their judgement and to develop understanding of the historical and political influences at play, using this knowledge to inform their choices, learning from mistakes and accruing knowledge about the characters involved, their personalities and the pressures they faced. The mode of play is intended to align the educational goals with the motive influence of the game mechanic (**Figure 1**). Scenarios are sequential in nature, growing in both complexity and difficulty as the player progresses, with intervals in which the second games mechanic (below) is deployed, to offer a sense of completion, and to illustrate and mark progress.

The second game mechanic is most analogous to computer games such as Sims™ (2000) or SimCity™ (1997) with the player asked to construct and decorate a digital version of the physical picture gallery in which the game is being played. This digital model was overlaid and mapped onto the physical space, offering a direct comparison between the current physical reality of the space and the presented historical recreations. These recreations were the bare walls and architectural features followed by a representation of the Tudor space and finally a faithful digital recreation of the space as it is currently seen, with this becoming a digital souvenir the player can take away with them and revisit at their leisure (**Figures 2** and **3**).

The game incorporates a number of functions germane to this chapter. Primarily, it aims to offer the opportunity for the player to exercise creativity, giving them

**Figure 1.** *TNAR: (2018).*

*Right Game, Wrong Place? A Case Study: Using a Gamified AR Application in a Heritage… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107535*

**Figure 2.** *Early redecoration scenes (2018).*

**Figure 3.** *Final redecoration scenes (2018).*

choices on how to apply the various elements of decoration and construction, with a large variety of potential outcomes being available. The second function relates to progress and completion, with the building and redecoration of the digital space operating to illustrate and reward player progression in the text-based game, but doing so in a way that is directly related to the educational goals rather than using arbitrary points or levels. The third function also relates to this imperative to align method and mechanism of play through playable moments, such as completing the gallery and comparing it with the original, and through the overarching goal of the application, to wit, the dissemination of contextual and educational information relating to the hidden histories of the space itself.
