The Model and Application of the Serious Game for Cultural Heritage Education: A Case Study of Kuliang, China

Serious games (SGs) based on digital heritage information have been a hot topic in the field of cultural heritage and digital technology in recent years. The SGs combine the content of entertainment, information, and education, which have been widely used in some museums and cultural sites in Western countries. The challenge is how to balance the “entertainment” part and the “education” part during the development stage, and how to spread the historical knowledge in a friendly manner. This paper takes some SGs, such as The Emperor’s Day (launched by the Palace Museum of China) and Father and Son (developed by the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy) as examples, and analyzes them in terms of their informational content, communication mode, user-interface design, and their implementation of the interactive experience. Based on the case study, the basic framework of the conception, design, and evaluation of SGs has been summarized. Furthermore, the paper discusses the extraction of cultural heritage information, the setting of puzzles and clues, the possibility of participation, the way to present knowledge points, and other key elements related to heritage education. Finally, taking the “Life on the Mountain Museum”—a historical building and research base in Kuliang, Fuzhou—as an example, the feasibility and potential of applying SGs to online and offline educational activities is discussed.