OFabulis and Versailles 1685: a comparative study of the creation process behind video games on historical monuments


Lelièvre Edwige
2016 DiGRA/FDG ’16 – Proceedings of the 2016 Playing With History Workshop

This paper explores the specificities of the creation process behind video games focusing on historical monument through the comparison between two point-and-clicks: OFabulis and Versailles 1685. The study is based on the authors’ interviews, log books and work documents. The comparison seems to reveal that three elements are inherent to this type of video games: participation of cultural institutions in the game design right from the start, leading scenario with compromises between history and fiction, ad hoc multimedia systems with limited gameplay and realistic rendering.