# Augmented Reality in Cultural Heritage: An Overview of the Last Decade of Applications
## 3 Top Trending Applications of AR in Cultural Heritage
### Gamification  
In recent years there have been some very interesting developments in the gamification space that can help change the perception of the types of applications and uses of AR in CH. The concept of gamification was defined as \"the use of game design elements in non-game contexts\" [126] or \"game science that explores the various design techniques, and related concerns, that can be used to add game elements to existing real-world processes\" [127]. More recent, another definition states that \"gamification is about taking something that is not a game and applying game mechanics to increase user engagement, happiness and loyalty\" [128]. The advantages offered by gamification highlighted by the above definition have been exploited also for the enhancement of the CH field by making CH more interesting and providing unique and entertaining ways for people to learn and experience these spaces. Often referred to with alternative terms such as \"pervasive games\" or \"game-based learning\" [129], gamification has been used in this field mainly in two forms: serious games (SGs) and storytelling. SGs were created with the aim of producing constructive or educative results in addition to entertainment value. So, their objective is to support the user in achieving learning goals through a fun experience [106]. In CH, SGs are considered some of the most innovative ways to understand culture and history by using interactive technologies [130]. SGs are characterized by the following features: (a) the user's behavior, learning, and achievement goals are more important than entertainment; (b) the design of the game is specifically created to improve the knowledge, skills, and behaviors of the target users. There are several ways that SGs can be used to encourage more engagement with CH. For instance, the SG concepts could be used to gamify the interactions with artifacts using multimodal interfaces to create immersive experiences for users [131]. An immersive haptic VR system for recreating the experience of shooting with a bow was presented in [132]. Haptic feedback had the potential to improve the user experience, as shown in [133]. In addition, SG and gamification were used to gamify social spaces, providing opportunities for visitors to explore CH spaces in a fun and engaging way at the same time. In particular, gamification in the context of museums has been a fruitful research topic with some interesting examples of AR systems used for game-like interaction [134; 135]. The enhanced AR experiences in museum settings have the potential to maximize user satisfaction and also learning outcomes [136]. In spite of the opportunities offered by indoor environments, many recent AR experiences have been designed using smartphones and tablets as supporting hardware for outdoor settings [137; 138], for instance to discover CH locations [139] and to enhance experiential learning [140]. In [141], a mixed reality (MR) assisted by geoinformatics technologies for reviving historical events was presented. The other form of gamification with great potential to revolutionize the way the users engage with CH is storytelling. Digital storytelling (DS) is defined as the evolution of traditional storytelling that combines the ancient art of telling a story and current technological possibilities [142]. Extended reality (XR) technologies have been used successfully in interactive DS applications to experience past events and meet historical characters [63] or to enhance the appreciation of classical Chinese poetry [143]. The relationship between AR technology and storytelling was also explored in [110] for an application designed to engage the visitors of a literary museum.