GE @ Pukkelpop - one of Europe’s biggest Festivals

22 Aug 2018

Until last Saturday, 18.8.2018, 75.000 people a day visited Pukkelpop, one of Europe’s biggest festivals. The Games Engineering group of the JMU Würzburg joined forces with the police of the Belgian province of Limburg to provide a unique virtual reality (VR) experience: They deployed former students’ award-winning serious game on the adverse effects of alcohol in individual traffic for VR (IEEE Xplore, ACM).

Three gaming seats, steering wheels, pedals and Oculus Rifts allowed the visitors to take a fun but serious lesson about drunk driving and to be encouraged to be “BE SMART”, not to drive and to look for alternatives. 700 people took part in the the experience and, according to the police officers and volunteers at the festival “they were all very pleased with the game, it was fun and mega-cool!! [The event was covered] in a press-conference on the spot with the major papers and radio. All in all the game was terrific and it was a huge success, so I want to thank you and your team in the name of our Province for the help and to provide us with this game.”

We want to thank Nico Schrooten and his team in turn, and also the students who developed this brilliant game concept and design in the first place.