This past week, LoGaCulture researchers presented their latest work at the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2025 Conference (FDG25), exploring how storytelling techniques from genre fiction can transform location-based cultural heritage experiences. The paper — titled “Temporal Collisions: On the Use of Narrative Conventions from Genre Fiction for Location-Based Cultural Heritage Games” and authored by Mads Haahr and Joris Vreeke (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute, Portugal) and Charlie Hargood (Bournemouth University, UK) — examines how literary genres such as ghost stories, science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy can be harnessed to create compelling, story-driven interactions with historical sites.
For decades, digital technologies have been integrated into cultural heritage spaces to enhance visitor engagement and convey historical context. While many such tools focus on delivering information (e.g., audio guides or AR reconstructions), others aim to immerse users in narrative experiences. However, creating a believable reason for the “collision” of past and present — essential in storytelling — remains a narrative challenge.
The study presented at FDG25 investigates how conventions from popular genres can frame these temporal intersections. By analyzing narrative structures within ghost stories, time travel tales, and other forms of genre fiction, the authors propose methods for structuring locative games in ways that evoke emotional and intellectual connections to place. Their findings suggest that time travel and ghost stories, in particular, offer the most intuitive frameworks for merging historical content with present-day gameplay.
A key contribution of the paper is a tentative mapping of these narrative strategies onto an actual, historically rich and contested cultural site. This mapping demonstrates how different genres afford varying degrees of narrative control and temporal engagement — offering practical insights for designers, curators, and developers working in the growing field of digital heritage.
This research contributes to a broader conversation on how digital storytelling and game design can foster deeper connections to place, memory, and history.