From eye-tracking to games: exploring low-tech solutions for sustainable cultural landscape management

• Explores games and eye tracking for sustainable management of cultural landscapes. • Puzzle-based methods provide insights into public perception of cultural sites. • Games can drive data-informed policies for managing heritage in smart cities. • Games offer accessible alternatives to tech-heavy tools for heritage management. The development of cities to address social, cultural, and environmental challenges increasingly relies on new technologies. Eye tracking (ET) is one such method used to assess how urban developments impact the perception of architectural and cultural heritage. However, ET has limitations, including high costs and difficulties with certain populations. This paper proposes the use of games, specifically puzzles, as an accessible alternative for wider community engagement in urban planning. Although games are often viewed as less serious research tools, our study shows that they can produce results comparable to ET. A comparative analysis revealed significant correlations between how participants arranged architectural puzzles and their spatial perception of cultural landscapes. These findings suggest that games could offer a sustainable, low-cost method for evaluating urban development impacts on heritage sites. Future research should explore the broader applicability of puzzles and other game types in city management and heritage protection.