CREATORS of a video game in which the players explore a 3D virtual model of St Barnabas’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Nottingham, hope that it will teach younger generations about the importance of protecting local heritage.
The game, Pugin’s Revival, is part of the cathedral’s Restoring Pugin project, which seeks both to restore the original early Victorian decorations at the east end and to engage the wider public with its story.
The video-game project is led by Professor Benachir Medjdoub, a specialist in digital architecture, at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). It is part of a wider £120,000 research project with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and involves game-technology research at NTU. It was designed with help from pupils at the Loughborough Schools Foundation.
“The children we’ve worked with were instrumental in designing this game to make it engaging for the next generation so that they can appreciate and understand how and why our historic architecture must be saved,” Professor Medjoub said.
“For example, it was the children’s idea to place Pugin as the narrator. They learned how he was a prominent architectural figure in the early Victorian period and that he was the mastermind behind the design of Nottingham Cathedral.”
Players of the game must save the cathedral from ruin at the hands of “structural monsters”. They face threats from the crack, humidity, and mould monsters who damage the building’s fabric. The game also features riddles hidden in secret chests, and a map to guide the players. At the end, a quiz tests the knowledge that they have gained.
Professor Medjdoub said that the children “also wanted to include the monsters as metaphors for the different ways that damage occurs to heritage buildings, making it a more engaging way to learn”.
He continued: “It’s important that we not only raise awareness, but also give children the knowledge from a technical point of point of view of how these buildings need to be maintained.”
A 20-minute version of Pugin’s Revival is being provided for schools and community spaces across Nottinghamshire, while a one-hour version is available for more serious gamers. NTU has said that a smartphone version will be created.
The project manager of the Restoring Pugin project, Jane Hellings, said: “Pugin’s Revival is a brilliantly engaging and unique tool for young people which will form part of a careers pack rolled out to schools — eventually on a national basis.”