To serve the needs of the Natural History Museum of Crete on raising awareness of and training its visitors on mitigating risks from disasters, four interactive mobile location-based games have been produced under EVANDE. These games, developed by the Natural History Museum of Crete/University of Crete in cooperation with the Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications/Technical University of Crete (TUC/MUSIC), are to be implemented at the facilities of the NHMC at Heraklion, Crete, Greece and the nearby area. Players have to undertake actions following the museum’s evacuation plan and fulfill certain tasks related to earthquake, flood or fire disasters. The games are suitable for all Android mobile devices that a visitor can carry with him/her and are also available on tablets existing at the museum.

The games have been developed on the PlayLearn platform, developed by the Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications of the Technical University of Crete (TUC/MUSIC), supporting the development and management of learning experiences in mobile location-based games, consisting of: (a) an authoring tool, supporting the creation and management of games, scenario editing, user interface customization and organization of gaming activities, and (b) a mobile application, compatible with most state-of-the-art mobile devices and platforms, supporting the play of games created by the authoring tool.

Players need to download and install on their device the open “Playlearn” mobile application (for Android) before visiting the museum from here, or just ask a tablet for free during the visit.

For more information about the PlayLearn platform and the process of the mobile games development, you can download the following papers:

1. Makris D., Makris K., Arapi P., Christodoulakis S., Stathi I., Spiridaki E., and Fassoulas C. (2016): “Supporting the Development and Management of Learning Experiences in Location-Based Mobile Games – The EVANDE project”, International Journal On Advances in Intelligent Systems, volume 9 n 3&4, 2016
2. Makris D., Makris K., Arapi P., Christodoulakis S. (2016): “PlayLearn: A Platform for the Development and Management of Learning Experiences in Location-Based Mobile Games”, In Proc. of the Eighth International Conference on Mobile, Hybrid, and On-line Learning (eLmL 2016), IARIA, April 2016, Venice, Italy, pp. 43-48, ISSN: 2308-4367, ISBN: 978-1-61208-471-8 (selected as one of the best papers of the conference)