Let's Ceramic!

Let’s Ceramic! is an immersive AR game that brings together the art of ceramic-making and the beauty of visual heritage. Players shape, decorate, and fire their own virtual ceramic vessels using intuitive hand gestures and textures derived from real museum paintings. This unique blend of material craft and digital art transforms traditional ceramic techniques into a deeply personal, interactive, and culturally meaningful experience. By combining hands-on creation with curated artworks, Let’s Ceramic! invites players to become both makers and storytellers of heritage.

Let’s Ceramic: An Immersive Journey into Ceramic Heritage and Art

Ceramics have long served as cultural carriers across Europe, reflecting traditions, aesthetics, and identities through form and surface. In Denmark, ceramic practice bridges the gap between functional design and expressive craftsmanship. Let’s Ceramic! reimagines this heritage in a contemporary context. It offers players the opportunity to engage with cultural memory through personal creation, not by observation but through tactile interaction and artistic choice.

In this experience, ceramic textures are sourced from actual artworks housed in the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum. These artworks, once static in galleries, become dynamic elements within the player’s creative process. Each selection, each applied pattern, is a decision layered with narrative and meaning. Through the act of making, players explore dimensions of beauty, identity, and memory that connect personal gesture with historical resonance.

The game also embodies the European value of freedom, understood as the ability to make meaningful choices, express oneself creatively, and participate fully in cultural life. In Let’s Ceramic!, this freedom takes form through unrestricted shaping of ceramics, open-ended decoration with historical textures, and autonomous decision-making during firing. These opportunities for artistic liberty reflect how freedom in the European context involves both individual agency and participation in shared culture.

The gameplay unfolds in four stages: shaping, decorating, firing, and reflection.

Shaping Stage

In the shaping stage, players use both hands to mold a virtual ceramic object. The left hand selects a horizontal segment of the form by pinching and sliding, while the right hand rotates to adjust the width of that segment. This interaction simulates traditional wheel work, providing intuitive control and creative freedom.

To enhance realism and immersion, the ceramic continuously rotates during all stages. This movement allows the player to inspect and shape from every angle, reinforcing the sense of working with a tangible object.

Decorating Stage

In the decorating stage, players explore and select textures derived from real artworks at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum. These textures are not only decorative but carry cultural and historical significance. When applied, they wrap the ceramic surface, merging personal design with curated heritage.

Firing Stage

The firing stage introduces challenge and strategic tension. Once the ceramic is placed in the kiln, a 20 second countdown begins. Players must maintain the temperature between 800°C and 1200°C by choosing and adding different types of fuel: small firewood for gentle heating, large firewood for rapid heating, and wet firewood for sudden cooling.

To succeed, the ceramic must stay within the target range for 5 continuous seconds or end in that range when time runs out. Overheating past 1200°C results in a cracked piece, while exceeding 1400°C causes an instant explosion. Wet firewood is only usable above 800°C, requiring precise judgment. This phase tests timing, accuracy, and decision making under pressure.

Reflection Stage

Regardless of the outcome, the final piece is displayed in a virtual gallery. Players can view their ceramic, reflect on the choices made during the game, and appreciate how those decisions shaped the result. This moment invites personal and cultural reflection, reinforcing the emotional and intellectual connection to heritage.

Ceramics in this game are not just objects. They are vehicles for exploring identity, beauty, and memory. By blending real museum content with creative freedom, Let’s Ceramic! allows players to take part in living heritage.

Team Reflection

Designing Let’s Ceramic helped us understand how cultural heritage can be experienced through action, not just explanation. From the beginning, we wanted players to truly feel what it’s like to shape, decorate, and fire a ceramic piece using their own hands. While we originally imagined a multiplayer experience, we soon realized it was more practical to start with a single-player version. This allowed us to focus on turning traditional techniques into intuitive, gesture-based AR interactions.

After visiting the ARoS Art Museum and speaking with Rikke Toft Nørgård, we saw a bigger opportunity. By combining traditional ceramic-making with historical paintings, we could deepen the emotional and cultural impact of the game. It became a way not just to play, but to connect with heritage in a meaningful way.

Playtesting confirmed this idea. Many players said that shaping and customizing their own ceramic was both fun and meaningful. These personal moments of expression showed how creativity and culture could come together through interaction.

During development, we also learned how to balance realism with accessibility. We wanted the game to feel authentic, but still easy to use for beginners. That led us to continuously improve the shaping process and refine the visuals, making the experience smoother while still honoring traditional craft.

Most of all, this project showed us that digital interaction, when thoughtfully designed, can help preserve and share cultural traditions. Let’s Ceramic became more than just a game. It became a creative and personal way to experience culture through making.