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

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DiGRA/FDG ’16 – Proceedings of the 2016 Playing With History Workshop
Dundee, Scotland: Digital Games Research Association and Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games, August, 2016
Number: 3
Volume: 13
ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666


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.