Interactive and informative presidential palace application

Interactive application developed to accompany the Doors open day at the Presidential palace in Slovakia

Presidential palace in Bratislava – the Grassalkovich palace –  is a place with rich history. The annual doors open day is there to show anyone its secrets. Our accompanying interactive application combines two important factors – information and play. Similar to our older projects, we rely on a touch screen – a very common interface nowadays. You can read here, why interactivity is a thing.

Interactive elements and the concept

We designed the information flow in a way that encourages exploration. The user has no real clue what is going to happen. There is no manual, no obvious highlighting of the interactive parts. Only a short written cue that one can interact with the palace.

In the end, one can play with window lights, pigeons, clouds, guards, trees. One can  also look closer at 4 important rooms in the palace. By utilising the play factor, we create positive emotional bond and therefore make the user more motivated to read the texts. The ultimate goal is, first and foremost, that the doors open day visitors will leave enriched. Have fun. Learn something. Remember the experience. Entering the rooms with some starting knowledge helps.

Interactive palace text view

Interactive and playful Grassalkovich palace layer is complemented with short texts.

The following image shows the visual progress we made from the concept to release version. Our long term collaborator Dana Bubáková did a great job again.

Comparison of where we ended up and where we started with the graphics.

Comparison of where we ended up and where we started with the graphics.

Of course, the development tool was again the awesome Godot  game engine.