Virtual Songlines is a cultural heritage video game project. The concept preserves indigenous knowledge and promotes Aboriginal culture with an immersive ludic educational tool for future generations.
Take a peek at the Virtual Songlines Trailer.
Warrane – Eora
The game is a role-playing survival game exploring the landscape and culture before the 18th-century colonial settlement in an interactive virtual environment.
Warrane – Eora, sets the player to survive using observation and understanding of the natural and cultural aspects of the challenging landscape, before the Sydney Harbour we know today. The player is a Cadigal person, sharing the lifestyle of the harbour’s original occupants, engaging with the environment, objects and life, and the values maintained by their people.
The game in its entirety is a simulation with historical accuracy and respectful to Aboriginal heritage. The development is based on historical accounts of the knowledge, art and culture as well as the natural landscape with plant and animal life.
© Warrane – Eora, Virtual Songlines, Bilbie
Bilbie Virtual Labs
Bilbie Virtual Labs strive to combine indigenous knowledge with technology, creating games with a multidisciplinary team of video game developers, traditional owners, archaeologists, anthropologists and botanists. The games aim to preserve and promote First Nations culture, diversity and history as well as introduce a new medium for cultural heritage outreach. Bilbie uses virtual and augmented reality to formulate cultural heritage applications.
Our take
Cultural heritage industry adopts more and more video games as educational and promotional tools. Through virtual and augmented related platforms, users live and actively connect with the past and all the elements surrounding cultural heritage that are difficult to transmit by reading brochures or attending workshops. Video games are highly immersive; a player can experience visually and audibly a world that comes back to life before them.
Cultural heritage video games carry history forward, create a meaningful experience with their audience and build their capacity beyond transmitting heritage value to the use of ICT’s. From the standpoint of a small community looking to preserve their culture and monuments considering this approach can be highly beneficial as they can maintain an active connection with their youth in both the development and distribution and help them learn new skills in the humanities and sciences at the same time.
I want to learn more:
Fast Five – Quick Questions with Virtual Heritage Jedi, Brett Leavy
Australian Aboriginal Virtual Heritage by Brett Leavy
Yarnuping 4 –Aboriginal People, Comics and the Virtual World
