First-person Cinematographic Videogames: Game Model, Authoring Environment, and Potential for Creating Affection for Places

AbstractWe present and explore the fruitfulness of “first-person cinematographic videogames,” a game model we have devised for the promotion of cultural, environmental, and territorial heritage. To support and foster the development of these type of games, we have developed a Web-based user-friendly authoring environment, extensively presented in the article. While employing standard first-person point-and-click game mechanics, the game model's distinctive feature is that the game environment is not based on a digital reconstruction (3D model) of the real-world settings but on cinematographic techniques combining videos and photos of existing places, integrating videoclips of mostly practical effects to obtain the interactivity typical of the first-person point-and-click adventure games. Our goal with such a game model is to mobilise mechanisms of engendering affection for real-world places when they become settings of the game world, arousing in the player forms of affection, attachment, and desire to visit them.