Norwich HEART – the Heritage Economic & Regeneration Trust – have launched a new free-to-play online heritage quest game, known as ‘n-Explore’ (www.n-explore.com).
The hidden object game tells 60 tales of the city’s past across five themed categories, and has been written and designed for use in Key Stage Two and Three of the National Curriculum. Featuring hand-illustrated, 3D perspective ‘maps’ of Norwich, users are tasked with finding objects hidden throughout eight periods of history, from the Saxon period to the present day.
Players scroll through a timeline of Norwich, and solve clues to find the hidden items throughout the city, including the Norwich 12 set of iconic buildings. The more hidden items players find, the further they progress though each level. Clicking on each hidden item unlocks a unique story from the city’s past, delivering historic information in an engaging yet informative way. All 60 stories fit into five themed levels – Arts & Leisure, Crime & Punishment, Kings & Queens, Money & People, and Religion & Beliefs.
Each of the five themes fits a wide range of national curriculum areas across Key Stages Two and Three, making this an ideal and engaging educational tool. Bespoke lesson plans have been produced by HEART and a local educational advisor, helping teachers across the city and beyond to use n-Explore in the classroom or as homework.
Michael Loveday, Chief Executive of HEART, said: “n-Explore is a unique and innovative resource, taking heritage interpretation in exciting directions and making it available to new audiences. Often, young people in particular are switched off by words like history or heritage, associating them with dull, factual cobwebby old stuff with no relevance to the modern world. We believe that using techniques that will resonate with the computer game generation will not only unlock the relevance of the past in shaping the present and the future, but might also demonstrate that historical exploration can be fun. We’ve already started to make headway in successfully demonstrating that heritage can be enjoyable through our amazingly successful Dragon Festivals and we hope that n-Explore will open a whole new chapter in engaging new audiences in the rich heritage of Norwich and therefore England.”
For those outside of Norwich, n-Explore is equally valuable. The way the city has grown and changed over time provides a model of the development of English cities all over the country, and stories of defence, law, religion and monarchy are relevant in a national and international context.
n-Explore has been developed by Norwich Heritage Economic and Regeneration Trust (HEART), and Norwich based heritage interpretation specialists Ugly Studios, and local web programmers Neontribe. It is part of the SHAPING 24 project, a cultural tourism initiative that links together the Norwich 12 with 12 heritage sites in Ghent. It is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund from the European Union’s INTERREG IV A 2 Seas Cross-border Cooperation Programme 2007-2013.
n-Explore is available to play online at www.n-explore.com, where it is also available as a download for offline use. Lesson plans and guides for teachers can be also found on the site.
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