Nokia Research sponsors tourist game REXplorer

REXplorer is a crucial part of the „Regensburg Experience“ (REX), a high tech visitor centre and experience space where history shakes hands with the future, fusing Offline / Online and in house / urban space multimedia offerings. The Regensburg Experience aims at promoting Regensburg as Germany’s most beautiful and historical city. The project will be implemented in three spaces, (1) in the renovated 1620 salt storehouse „Salzstadel“; (2) in the virtual space of the WWW; (3) in the urban space of the city taking on the form of REXplorer, cf. http://www.rex-regensburg.de. It is planned to intertwine these spaces scenographically where appropriate.

REXplorer is a joint project between RWTH Aachen University, Germany; ETH Zurich, Switzerland; non-profit company Regensburg Experience; the city of Regensburg; the University of Regensburg’s „Forum Mittelalter“ (engl. Middle Ages Forum), and the 130 Regensburg sightseeing guides. Out of the 1.6 million national and international visitors to the city per year, REXplorer targets mainly young adult day trippers, local and regional school groups, as well as a portion of the increased number of expected tourists with Regensburg becoming a UNESCO world heritage in 2006. The number of expected REXplorer players totals to > 30'000 per year, who we believe will rent a „wand“ at the Salzstadel museum location. We design REXplorer on the assumption of an average of 60-70 simultaneous players, with an average gameplay session ranging from 1-3 hours.

The basic premise of REXplorer is that particular landmarked buildings have locked magical spirits, secrets, and treasures inside of them, all of which can be unleashed and interacted with by the way of the proper magical spell gesture, which we have termed “cellcast”. REXplorer equips players with a rental „wand“, a gesture sensing and location tracking smartphone running custom software and data neccessary for the game. As if taking a positionable, Nintendo Revolution controller with built-in loudspeaker outdoors, players may not only interact with site specific game services including large public displays, but also duel with one another, or fulfill cooperative quests.