Transforming Ancient Board Games into Interactive VR Cultural Heritage Experiences

Details

Supervisors

Piette, Eric

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil en informatique, à finalité spécialisée
Master [120] : ingénieur civil en informatique, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enIn an increasingly digitized world, society is facing a growing disconnection from physical and sensory experiences. Conversely, board games, one of humanity's oldest and most universal forms of cultural expression and social bonding, are undergoing a modern resurgence. However, when historical board games are preserved in museums, they are frequently reduced to static, untouchable objects displayed behind glass, stripped of their rules and interactivity. While digital initiatives like the Digital Ludeme Project (DLP) and Ludii General Game System (GGS) have made significant strides in computationally reconstructing thousands of games, these platforms remain constrained by flat, 2D interfaces that lack tactile and spatial presence. This thesis bridges the gap between historical preservation and embodied interaction by proposing a prototype for a generic virtual reality (VR) framework that translates Ludii's game descriptions into immersive 3D environments. Developed using Unreal Engine, the pipeline procedurally generates boards and pieces for games, allowing players to physically manipulate artefacts within a virtual setting. Beyond enhancing the experiential and educational dimension of cultural heritage, this framework also introduces the capability to capture real-time player behavioral data to support future research into Human-Like AI gameplay modeling. To demonstrate the viability of this approach, the system's cultural heritage applications are explored through a practical case study of the game Ludus Coriovalli, whose rulesets have been recently constructed. Ultimately, this work represents a foundational step toward the ambitious vision of automatically rendering and playing thousands of ancient board games in VR, reviving the intangible essence of human game heritage through accessible and embodied interaction.