JERMANIA – An interactive journey to Germany

Abstract

JERMANIA is a non-commercial Cultural Gaming App for young Indonesians who are interested in German culture and language in the age group 16-25 years. Produced in a fruitful collaboration between Goethe-Institut Jakarta’s library and game designers from both Indonesia and Germany, players interactively explore five German cities like Cologne or Dresden in this app. Mini games provide a lot of fun and variety, while at the same time enabling a playful introduction into getting to know Germany.

Aside from monumental buildings and touristic sites, regional diversity and local cultural characteristics are a recurring theme in the game. In Berlin, for example, the player can prepare local food specialty “Currywurst”, while in Cologne, “Halve Hahn” and carnival-celebrating folks can be discovered. The storyline is accompanied by a wonderful Japanese-RPG-style soundtrack. The trailer of the game gives an impression of the artistic approach and the general storyline of the game.

For the past years, games and gaming has been a focal point of the programmatic work at the library of Goethe-Institut Jakarta. Providing services equally for clients interested in German culture and students of German language, Goethe-Institut Jakarta has built up a wide range of experience with gaming and gaming events. Based on previous experiences like the “Game Mixer” and in order to add further to its services, the library team set out in 2016 to develop a playful and inspiring cultural app for young Indonesians that form the great majority of its patrons.

JERMANIA is now an integral part of every library tour offered and it has contributed a lot to shifting the image of our library towards a modern and innovative learning facility. Likewise, by proving that a library can have successful intersectoral collaboration with creative industries, our library succeeded in gaining reputation among its stakeholders and partners. Chinese (Simplified Chinese) and Russian language scripts should use the layout of this template and choose suitable fonts and font sizes.