Interstellar City Guide

💎 Idea

The idea is to make local, close-to-nature destinations more touristy with gamification. 

First, we carefully select a 5-30 Hungarian towns that are touristically undervalued, yet lovable, close to nature and full of life. Those will be incuded to the game.

Then we contact the locals in each town to find out why they like to live there, what their favorite programs and places are. We use this information throughout the game.

Now comes the 'hard part' of the work. The stars must be brought down from the sky to the Earth, taking care not to disturb the shape of the stellar constellations. Each town gets its own constellation and an own story.

Once the stars have entered the city, this first interstellar traveler can lift off to make the distance to the nearest star. Then to the next and the next and so on... While the astronaut is searching for the stars, he or she actually takes a sightseeing walk and vice versa. When a user visits a star, they get new, personalized information about the small town and a part of the story contains information about the constellation and the stars.

When the user completes all the points in the constellation the Guide will encourage the user to upload a nightsky photo he or she has taken with that constellation walked. When its done he or she will receive a virtual medal and a gentle urge to explore other constellations (towns) as well. At the end of the game, when the user has completed all the constellations, he or she will be rewarded.   

  The Users experience:

For the game we provide the travellers an Interstellar City Guide (mobile application or a pocketbook). The users open the Guide and see a star chart with stellar constellations which are always observables (circumpolars). When the users select a constellation, a map of a location on Earth will reveil. Lets say the reveiled location is a small town of Hungary which bears only relatively few touristic attractions but it has something why it is worth to visit (nature, community, energy). When the users visit this town and reach a star's position they will get an interesting information of that town. When users collect all the stars in the constellation and upload a night picture of the sky with the selected constellation taken by them, they will be rewarded with a badge. When the users fulfill the whole Interstellar City Guide with all the stellar constelllations they will get a (space related) reward.

Check our test product here:

https://interstellar-city-guide.bubbleapps.io/version-test/

🛰️ EU space technologies

In this project we use 

• maps and geoinromatics based on satellite maps to find the best location to our game. (Location-secection phase, Constellation-projection phase)
• TEIR data provided by Lechner Tudásközpont
• GNSS positions what we give to the stars 

The users can use positioning and navigation services provided by Galileo and EGNOS while they are using the Interstellar City Guide.

🏖️ (Re)Visit Europe

Which of the 3 challenges are you solving? 

#1 Finding sustainable destinations
#2 Experiencing cities and cultures

How does this make tourism more sustainable and digital? 

• The game supports local tourism and short distance travel. 
• The game encourage you to spend a night in the visited town. 
• The game brings you closer to nature and gives the travellers a good opportunity to get familiar with the night sky. 
• We can use satellite data to prepare the game. 
• GNSS information is required during the game. 
• The personalized information obtained during the game creates a connection between the tourist (user) and the residents.

 💪 Team 

Erika Verebelyi:

An astronomer and project owner. Graduated as astronomer at Eötvös University, Budapest in 2009. Earned a PhD in 2016. Worked as researcher between 2012 and 2019. Since then she learned and worked as data schientist, project manager, translator and developer. Participated in game-developing competitions. 

Ali Ahmad:

Full-stack developer @LimeLightR Oslo, BSc Computer Science from University of Debrecen.

Lannara Silva:

Entrepreneur.