Racing Into Tourism: a 3D Android Game for Promoting Erbil's Cultural Heritage

This paper presents the development and evaluation of Tishko Car Racing, a 3D car racing game for Android devices designed to promote Erbil's cultural heritage. The primary objective is to create a visually appealing and engaging mobile game that showcases prominent landmarks in Erbil, Kurdistan, thereby contributing to the city's tourism. Utilizing Unreal Engine for core game functionality and Blender for 3D modeling, we produced optimized low-poly assets suitable for mobile devices. Adopting an Agile methodology, we designed the game loop, user interface, and essential features such as checkpoints and AI-driven opponent cars. To validate the game's performance and user experience, we conducted comprehensive experimental benchmarks across multiple devices and a user study involving 50 participants. Results indicate stable frame rates and efficient memory usage on various hardware, while the user study revealed a 72 % increase in interest to visit Erbil and high engagement levels, with 65% of players returning after one week. These findings demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of leveraging mobile gaming to enhance cultural tourism. This paper discusses the tools, workflow, experimental results, user feedback, and challenges encountered in creating a mobile-friendly 3D racing game that integrates local cultural assets.