"The Hidden Stories of the Château" is an interactive individual audio storytelling experience designed for the Château de Champs-sur-Marne in Paris to enable people to learn about rich and colorful history of the Château in an interactive playful way. Through integrating stories of historical characters that have lived in the Château through the 18th to 20th century into the objects and furniture in the maison, one is able to follow the steps of these characters and live a day of their lives by listening to objects "telling" their stories associated with their related historical characters in a cohesive and immersive way, whilst learning through the decorative arts of this monument of French history.

This project aims to provide an alternative to the traditional visiting experience where visitors are passively accepting information from either the digital kiosk installed in each room which is hardly engaging, or the docent who constantly jumps between stories of different characters which could sometimes lead to confusion.

“That’s what games are, in the end. Teachers. Fun is just another word for learning” wrote Raph Koster in his A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004). Accordingly, we believe interaction, playfulness and immersion are key to understand and learn about a complex space. In this mediation proposal for the Château de Champs-sur-Marne, we looked at ways to explore and decorticate the long history of the place through different lines of storytelling, in order to implement an educational yet entertaining experience.