Keeping it real...

As I mentioned before, we attempt, in the creation of this game, to portray as much an accurate picture as possible in terms of historical and archaeological information. In the introductory scene, which takes place in 13th century Bologna,  we will be using a scientifically based 3D reconstruction of the city, which was done by Cineca . The game itself takes place in roman Bologna, for which we have also a scientifically based 3D  reconstruction of the city, created by the VHLab in ITABC, CNR (Rome). The people in both Cineca and the VHLab are playing a very big part in the creation of the story in terms of what was possible and what was not in the relevant time periods in Bologna.

Once the hero, or the player is in roman Bologna, he/she is no longer viewing the city, but interacting with the environment. The environment is based on specific archaeological sites that were excavated and played a central part in the daily life in the roman period. The nature of the archaeological data is that it is almost never whole and you end up with a picture with many missing pieces (sometimes you just have a frame...). For this reason, some buildings could not make an appearance at all in the reconstruction and some will be displayed only from the outside, so as not to give false information. For instance, it is known that there was a temple for the goddess Isis in roman Bologna, but as exotic and interesting addition it could have been in the game, we hardly know anything about it's structure, so sadly, it cannot be displayed in the game. Another example for the challenge of "scientific integrity" in our game is the case of the basilica, of which only the foundations have survived. It was possible to reconstruct a general look according to the floor plan and similar buildings in other roman cities, but to show the interior for interaction purposes in the game would be misleading.

A display of the basilica floor plan in the archaeological site, Bologna

To summarize,  it is a question of where you draw the line - finding a balance between the actual archaeological information, the researchers' interpretation of it and the needs of the game's environment.

A reconstruction of the basilica (VHLab, ITABC, CNR-Rome)