First-person Cinematographic Videogames: Game Model, Authoring Environment, and Potential for Creating Affection for Places

We present and explore the fruitfulness of "first-person cinematographic videogames,"a game model we have devised for the promotion of cultural, environmental, and territorial heritage. To support and foster the development of these type of games, we have developed a Web-based user-friendly authoring environment, extensively presented in the article. While employing standard first-person point-and-click game mechanics, the game model's distinctive feature is that the game environment is not based on a digital reconstruction (3D model) of the real-world settings but on cinematographic techniques combining videos and photos of existing places, integrating videoclips of mostly practical effects to obtain the interactivity typical of the first-person point-and-click adventure games. Our goal with such a game model is to mobilise mechanisms of engendering affection for real-world places when they become settings of the game world, arousing in the player forms of affection, attachment, and desire to visit them.