The ZHAW is launching an interactive mobile game for refugee children from Ukraine. It should help to explore the city of Zurich in a familiar setting.
A little over a year ago, the Russian war of aggression broke out in Ukraine. As a result, millions of people left their homes – many of them sought and found protection in Switzerland. The Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) has now developed a video game that refugees can use to explore the city of Zurich. The smartphone game is aimed specifically at Ukrainian children, according to a statement.
The title of the game is “Де я знаходжуся?” in Ukrainian, which means “Where am I?” in German. It is intended to take up the Baukultur aspects of an escape – familiar buildings at home are destroyed or left behind, the new place is strange. In the game, Ukrainian buildings are embedded in the cityscape of Zurich. In this way, a part of home is integrated into the foreign city, writes the ZHAW. Students recreated landmarks from Kyiv and Zurich as models and inserted them into a 3D image of Zurich city center.
The game was finally created in cooperation with the Swiss game developer Blindflug Studios. According to the announcement, the game was also funded by the digitization initiative of the Zurich universities (DIZH) as part of the “dealing with emergency situations as a result of the war against Ukraine”.
From ETH to Shevchenko University
The play world stretches along the Limmat to the ETH Zurich and the main station. The player explores the city on a scooter and with the help of a map. Some Zurich buildings disappear into thin air during the game – the players then have the task of bringing back the puzzle pieces that have been distributed in the city to the buildings, as the ZHAW writes. At the end of each puzzle, however, it is not the Zurich building that appears, but a landmark from Kyiv. These include the St. Andrew’s Church, the Shevchenko University and the Hotel Salyut.
“The game was well received by the Ukrainians involved in the project, but of course we are now interested in the reactions of those affected,” says Andri Gerber, co-director of the ZHAW Institute of Structural Design. “The video game is intended to help the fleeing Ukrainian children and young people to feel at home in Zurich while playing.”
Speaking of Swiss video games: Developers from French-speaking Switzerland swept away their hearts at the last Swiss Game Awards. You can read about the titles with which they convinced the jury here.
