Culture Trip

In the “Culture Trip” game the idea is based on learning about European countries, their neighbours, national banners and specific cultural information. Main aim is to draw attention to the cultural variety in Europe and the fact that it is important for young people to more or less know the specifics of different cultures in order to be able to understand them.

An alien has landed in Bulgaria, but its spaceship crashed in Portugal. You are in the role of the alien and have to travel from Bulgaria to Portugal to collect the spaceship. You have to choose to which of the neighbouring countries you want to go in order to travel the shortest and most direct way from Bulgaria to Portugal. However, you don’t see the names of the destination countries among which you can choose. Instead there are pictures of some typical cultural things related to each of the neighbouring countries – e.g. food, architecture, objects etc.

So, firstly one has to know the neighbouring countries for most of the European countries and must have an idea about the shortest way from Bulgaria to Portugal. Second, one has to know what is specific about the countries’ culture in order to make the right choices when selecting to which country to go next.

The game ends when you reach Portugal. The result you get is measured in km – the sum total of the distances you travelled from country to country. Thus your best result will be the shortest distance travelled in km. At any point during the game you can see the km travelled in the upper left corner of the screen.

“Culture Trip” is a free application, mobile game, developed in the frame of “Mobile games in youth work” project (www.mgames-youth.org). The aim of the project is to develop methodology and training games for mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) suitable for the youth work on the topics: entrepreneurship, intercultural learning and green skills. The project also trains youth workers and trainers how to use mobile games in their training or consulting activities. The project also trains youngsters and youth organizations how to develop mobile games for non-formal educational purposes.