Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-ofthe-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented.

This paper is a call for research in the field of game engine architecture and design, a more comprehensive and thorough understanding of which we consider to be essential for its development. We present a number of key aspects that may help to define the problem space and provide a catalogue of questions that we believe identify areas of interest for future investigation.

Misconceptions about the nature of the computing disciplines pose a serious problem to university faculties that offer computing degrees, as students enrolling on their programmes may come to realise that their expectations are not met by reality. This frequently results in the students' early disengagement from the subject of their degrees which in turn can lead to excessive 'wastage ', i.e 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 academic years, and conclude that the approach worked well for these cohorts, with students expressing increased interest in their chosen discipline, in addition to noticeable improvements in retention following the first year of the students' studies. . reduced retention. In this paper we report on our academic group's attempts within creative computing degrees at a UK university to counter these problems through the introduction of a six week long project that newly enrolled students embark on at the very beginning of their studies. This group project provides a breadth-first, activity-led introduction to their chosen academic discipline, aiming to increase student engagement while providing a stimulating learning experience with the overall goal to increase retention. We present the methods and results of two iterations of these projects in the

Over the past few decades, the arts have become increasingly dependent on and influenced by the development of computer technology. In the 1960s pioneering artists experimented with the emergent computer technology and more recently the majority of artists have come to use this technology to develop and even to implement their artefacts.The traditional divide between art and technology -if it ever existedhas been breaking down to the extent that a large number of artists consider themselves to be technophiles. In truth this divide has never existed. Throughout history artists have always used and exploited whatever technology existed and frequently led the development of new technology that would allow them to express their creativity. For instance the ancient Greek word for art was "τ´ χνη" (technê) -the etymological root for the word "technology".The divide between the arts and sciences, which we consider to be artificial and harmful, was only introduced in the western educational system in the 19th century and we believe that it is high time that it was bridged or removed altogether. To this end our centre has pioneered a number of university degrees that aim to blur the difference between artists and scientists / technologists. In this paper we explore the design of such courses, taking into account the evolution of the field and the historical development of our centre, and we share with our audience our experiences, successes, and trials and tribulations in implementing such degrees in the area of computer animation, games and digital effects. We present a discussion of the syllabus employed in our highly successful undergraduate degree programme, giving examples of various assignment and assessment forms. Further, we discuss the common issues in educating technophile artists that we have identified on our undergraduate programme and the implications on the students' learning experience arising from these.

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