Paris Liberation Museum
A serious game to make a historically significant site accessible to young people
The new museum of General Leclerc de Hautecloque and the Liberation of Paris, to be inaugurated in 2019 in the Ledoux Pavilion on Place Denfert-Rochereau, includes access to a passive defence shelter located twenty metres underground. This underground shelter also served as a checkpoint for Colonel Rol-Tanguy, the leader of the Parisian resistance who prepared the arrival of General Leclerc's armoured vehicles during the Liberation of Paris. Although a highlight of the visit, the staging and museographic presentation of this area are minimalist, given the characteristics of the site itself. To compensate for the sobriety of the scenography and give young visitors a better idea of what they are in for, Paris Musées wanted to offer an original interactive mediation tool: a serious game offering a fun and interactive investigation, encouraging young visitors to immerse themselves and take a close look at the different rooms in the shelter to better understand its functions and history.
A digital adventure to explore the history and functions of the defence shelter during the Liberation of Paris
Inconito has designed an original narrative adventure for this educational tool, featuring well-chiselled characters and carefully crafted dialogue. To get the player more involved, the scenario features an antagonist called Von Terror who is seeking to deprive the world of knowledge. Visitors are challenged to thwart Von Terror's plans by learning the history of the shelter and its various aspects and functions. The villainous Von Terror symbolises oblivion, intellectual manipulation and even a form of negationism that resonates with the current phenomenon of 'infox' (fake news). In contrast, the memorabilia and the young players, with their wisdom, courage, knowledge and humour, embody the living memory of the site and the preservation of the human values it once housed.
This game was developed using the Unity engine. It combines a story with educational elements and 5 interactive games that can be played by multiple players, offering an experience lasting from 30 to 45 minutes. Upon delivery of the serious game, tests were conducted in real conditions within the shelter with a class of CM2 students. These user tests helped identify potential difficulties for users and allowed adjustments to gameplay time to enhance the overall experience for the final version.
From a narrative point of view, the key message at the heart of the game is the duty to remember and spread knowledge about the events of the Second World War in Paris, so that the courage and commitment of the people who lived through them will always be honoured.