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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 FEBRUARY 2020 4 THIS WEEK HISTORY The Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum in Mdina has just enhanced its visitor experience by tapping into Augmented Reality technology, as the interactive game 'Secrets of Palazzo Falson' opens the museum up to fresh intrigue to anyone with a smartphone ready to hand. TEODOR RELJIC speaks to three people instrumental in making the game into an easily- accessible reality for all those who darken the Museum's door and embark on a journey with Lady Catarina Secrets of Palazzo Falson Caroline Tonna Curator, Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum Collaborating on a romantic tragedy "[Game/Interaction Designer] Eleni Papadopoulou is a won- derful Greek young lady and a very creative designer. Back in 2016 she started working on her research project on an interac- tive design intervention and en- gagement practices for Palazzo Falson with the support of Malta Arts Fund. She was inspired by the beauty of our medieval palaz- zo and the many myths and tales about it. She created a roman- tic-tragic story and further de- veloped it to a creative concept of how interaction and game design could be applied to Palaz- zo Falson. Eleni's practice-based artistic project was very relevant to our museum and we were excited to experiment with an innovative technology that was not only a first in Malta to use in a museum but it was also not yet widely available in museums worldwide." Making it happen "To materialise the project, in 2018, Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti entered into a joint part- nership with Vodafone Mal- ta Foundation that led to the fruition of a fully inclusive AR game. We explored ways to rein- force Eleni's story and we chose paintings and artefacts from our museum collections to inte- grate well with the mystery solv- ing game design. The creative team of programmers, graphics and animation designers from Mighty Box were engaged to de- velop the game under the direc- tion of Marvin Zammit." The breath of life "Once the game was designed, a group of well-established Maltese artists were chosen to record the voice-over of the protagonists of the game, both in Maltese and English. Lisa Mi- callef Grimaud is the voice of the lead protagonist, Lady Ca- terina, the ghost, who narrates her own story and invites the players to solve her mystery. Li- sa is also the voice of the Maid, in a completely different accent. Kenneth Scicluna is the voice of the butler, while Henry Zam- mit Cordina plays Kemal, Lady Caterina's lover, and Pia Zam- mit interprets the refined voice of Contessa de Falsone and the more humble voice of the cook. The players have an option of using the audio narration or fol- low the storyline and search for clues by reading the script avail- able in the game. This additional feature was aimed at people with hearing impairments." Eleni Papadopoulou Game/Interaction Designer Immediate Inspiration "There's a number of reasons why I chose Palazzo Falson for this project. The location of the Palazzo in Mdina, the emblem- atic architecture of it and, of course, the many different col- lections of gorgeous artifacts. Just being there already made my mind travel to medieval times, trying to simulate how it must have been to live in this house, what stories took place there. The Palazzo also inspired an escape-room feeling so I chose Augmented Reality as the for- mat of choice, so as to be able to combine game and real world el- ements in a seamless and engag- ing way, especially for younger audiences. Moreover, the cura- tor of the Palazzo and the whole team were very open-minded and welcoming to new ideas, so the decision was then made easy for me." There's Something About Catarina "Lady Catarina's story was in- spired by several myths and leg- ends that were told about the Palazzo, some of them involving testimonies of a lady ghost in the house during a restoration. I was very amused to find out about them during my research so I incorporated them into the story of the protagonist as they fitted Teodor Reljic