PicARsso

🎨 PicARsso is an innovative AR drawing game that explores how audio environments influence artistic expression. 🧠 Players are presented with paintings from the ARoS Human Nature Exhibition 🖼️, which serve as creative inspiration for their own artistic interpretations. Using the Logitech MX Ink pen 🖊️, they draw directly on a physical canvas while seeing their creations come alive in augmented reality— all while immersed in different soundscapes, testing the connection between sound, emotion, and creative freedom. Players navigate through artwork options using the controller in their other hand. PicARsso transforms cultural heritage, reimagines how we engage with art and empowers players through creative self-expression.
Experience art in a new dimension - where sight meets sound and creativity knows no bounds.

👥 Team:

The ARtists 🎭

🎮 Gameplay & Cultural Impact

The game incorporates artwork from the ARoS Human Nature Exhibition as its primary cultural material, that acts as an inspiration for artistic creation. Players engage with these works not as passive viewers but as active interpreters 🧑‍🎨, creating a dialogue between past artistic expressions and their own artistic expressions. This positions cultural heritage not as static history but as living inspiration that continues to evolve through new media.

PicARsso embodies the European value of freedom, giving players a space for open creative exploration, where they can freely express themselves through art. Unlike traditional games, it embraces interpretation over instruction, with sound 🔊 and emotion 💜 acting as catalysts for expression. PicARsso empowers players to create without restriction, interpreting cultural heritage through their unique perspective while experiencing how different audio environments might influence their creative process.

🕹️ Two-player AR experience:

🏆 Points are awarded based on difficulty level and correct guesses, with teams competing for the leaderboard positions.

🧠 Team Reflection

Our jam journey was one of continuous evolution and refinement. We began with a focus on color theory and emotions, then shifted to exploring how audio influences creativity and artistic expression 🎶, after being inspired by war paintings at ARoS. The Expert Council feedback challenged us to strengthen our connection to cultural heritage and better embody the EU value of freedom, leading to our final concept where players freely draw interpret famous artworks.

Perhaps most valuable was learning how to balance game design with cultural engagement - creating something that is both fun to play and meaningful in its cultural context. Our iterative process through all of the phases helped us continuously improve the concept, with playtesting 🧪 providing crucial insights about user experience and game design. Working with AR was complex 🧩, but let us create something truly fresh — immersive, expressive and fun✨.

Players found PicARsso intuitive and engaging 🕹️, with 87.5% of participants rating their experience as excellent and most reporting that AR drawing was more engaging than traditional methods. Our research suggests audio’s influence is highly individual — some participants reported audio environments significantly enhanced their creativity helping them become more expressive 🎨, others experienced minimal or no effect. That diversity opens interesting avenues for future exploration.

Beyond the overall experience ratings, our evaluation at the EXPO revealed specific insights about the drawing interaction 🖌️. Users particularly appreciated the blend of drawing on a real canvas while seeing their creations in AR . The challenge of guessing which painting inspired each drawing created an engaging social experience 👥 that connected players more deeply with the cultural heritage material 🖼️. Participants suggested enhancements like more color options 🎨 or eraser functionality — valuable feedback that points toward exciting possibilities for future iterations of PicARsso as both an artistic tool 🧠 and a cultural learning experience 🌱.

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