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THE DRAGON TRAIL. REAL-LIFE GAME AT THE BELGRADE FORTRESS. Kalemegdan - Belgrade Fortress is a No 1 cultural heritage site in Serbia. It is a huge fortress with park on the high river bank on the confluence of Sava and Danube rivers.
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THE DRAGON TRAIL REAL-LIFE GAME AT THE BELGRADE FORTRESS
Kalemegdan - Belgrade Fortress is a No 1 cultural heritage site in Serbia. • It is a huge fortress with park on the high river bank on the confluence of Sava and Danube rivers. • Archeological layers of the fortress contain remnants from Neolithic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Austrian and Serbian period of history. • Kalemegdan is a nucleus of Serbian capital Belgrade which once occupied only perimeter of the fortress and surrounding area. • It is also a most visited tourist site in Belgrade with more than 1.5M foreign visitors every year. It is a Belgrade’s “must see”, situated in the very heart of the city and on the most beautiful location.
In May 2010 YenDva3, a group of Belgrade game designers, decided to make a real-life EDUCATIONAL GAME FOR YOUNG PEOPLE that would take place in the Fortress. • The game was based on the cartoon style adventure plot which was appropriate for our target group.
We placed parts of story on the special web site and Facebook page preceding the game. Each player should visit a website before game in order to collect information and traces to start the game. Facebook app automatically posted games scores on players’ walls.
Katarina Ralovic PhD was a Belgrade archeologist who spent most of her professional career investigating the three thousand year-long history of Belgrade fortress. • Somewhere in old manuscripts she found evidence of a mysterious portal connecting parallel worlds that exist in space and time. • She realized that more than 200 wars that took place on that high river bank since the dawn of the history, which actually had one thing in common: the pursuit for the key of this trans-dimensional portal.
Mrs. Ralovic discovered that the key that opens doors to other dimensions is not actually an object (as all armies that fought beneath Belgrade walls actually believed) but a sequence of actions that must be done in exact order within precise timing. The passage to another world is locked by nine locks – each containing one riddle. In order to pass into another world, the brave traveler must solve all riddles and hope to land in somewhere far away – in the parallel universe.
One gloomy night, in the cold breeze from the ancient river, Mrs. Ralovic went on the Fortress and solved all nine riddles only to discover that what lies on the other side is a medieval world hosting a terrible monster – a Dragon, master of destruction. It was a world of epic fairytales about knights and Dragons. When she realized that, she placed special devices on each lock – to seal it so that nothing can go from one side to another. However, it seems that she didn’t manage to finish her mission and prevent the Dragon to come into our world. Nobody knows what happened to Mrs. Ralovic. She disappeared that night and no- one has seen her again. Not in this world.
She left vague traces of this mystery in her notes, found during investigation in her apartment. It seems that we must hurry to find nine locks sealing passage to another dimension and finish job she probably died for. It’s because if we don’t seal the locks, HE will come into our world… and destroy it.
Mrs. Ralovic has placed nine devices with intention to seal the nine locks hidden somewhere on the huge fortress. Each device is a Bluetooth device. Players were supposed to find and activate them by solving tasks and riddles.
RULES OF THE GAME • The Player must purchase a game card on the start position. • After that (s)he must find nine special Bluetooth devices hidden in the fortress. • Once (s)he finds it, the player must touch a device (lock) with her/his card to activate it. • The device will deliver an audio file with further instructions to the player. Some of the tasks were delivered by Bluetooth and some via SMS. • Time of play is limited on 90 minutes. After that… • Starts the end of the world.
TASK # 1 - INTRODUCTION This is intro file delivered to players’ mobile phones on the beginning of the game.
ACTIVATING THE SECOND DEVICE This device sends an SMS with the task
TASK # 2 • Go to a lower part of the Fortress, close to river, and find a table with a text in honor of defendants of Belgrade against German occupation in First World War. • Write down 15th, 34th, 49th, 53rd, 59th, 74thand 75th letter and send us via SMS a word formed by those letters. • ANSWER: SLOBODA (= LIBERTY)
TASK # 3 Answer correctly and you will receive a SMS with the location of next lock. There you will receive this task…
TASK # 4 • This task was delivered via SMS. • “Go and find a group of medieval warriors from another world hiding somewhere on the outer fortress walls. Have a short course of sword fight with them and they will tell you location of the next lock. “ • For this purpose we engaged members of the Belgrade LARP society kindly willing to help us in the game.
AND SO THE GAME GOES ON UNTIL… You loose You win Or Back to the starting position
RESULTS • This simple and educational game, played via Bluetooth and SMS, was so successful that it: • Produced a huge number of media announcements (TV, press and online). • Won a special recognition of City Council as a most innovative tourist project in the field of promotion of cultural heritage that year in Belgrade. • Was commissioned by public enterprise responsible for Belgrade Fortress and played again – next year. • Was played by more than 1000 players during only one season and almost double number of players during both seasons. • Attracted many families with children, instead of only young people, which were the initial primary target group.
THANK YOU Bogdan Spanjevic YenDva3 / ApsArt www.yendva3.com bspanjevic@hotmail.com + 381 64 844 65 33
