“The Mammoths Are Coming!”
That’s the name of the new permanent exhibition at the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart, for which we developed a 3D vase puzzle game as a multitouch application and a virtual 3D cave tour on the iPad.
Ice age in Stuttgart
The Natural History Museum Stuttgart is one of the most popular museums in Baden-Württemberg. With 6,200 square metres of exhibition space and over 11 million collection objects, it ranks among Germany’s major natural history museums.
After years of planning and development, the 1,000-square-metre exhibition “The Mammoths Are Coming!”, themed around the Ice Age, opened its doors in May 2018. Alongside huge, lifelike mammoths, a thrilling bear cave and hunting prehistoric humans, the new permanent exhibition was to feature two novel exhibits conveying the museum’s content playfully.
Pixelcloud developed two beautiful, innovative exhibits: a 3D multitouch application and an interactive virtual 3D cave tour on the iPad — responsible for concept, design and technical implementation alike.
Vase puzzle game
A clay vessel with missing pieces can be rotated horizontally using swipe gestures. Players select individual fragments and place them in the designated spots on the vase via drag & drop. Once one vessel is assembled, the other is displayed and can be completed as well.
The game has three difficulty levels, increasing replay value and keeping visitors engaged with the subject for longer — the number and size of the missing pieces change accordingly. Finally, visitors can examine the real vessels in a display case right next to the games table.
Virtual cave tour
The iPad serves as a “peephole” into four virtual caves. By moving the iPad, you can look around the cave and truly feel as if you were inside it. When players find one of the four cave paintings — from Chauvet, Lascaux, Altamira and Pech Merle — it lights up and information about the drawing is displayed.
The innovative controls do entirely without touch or swipe input: users navigate the application simply by aiming at objects.
“How are the applications going down?”
we asked visitors at the opening event of the permanent exhibition — and received enthusiastic feedback.
