Calum Blue Short - Curatours

"An immersive, multi-platform social tour experience, bringing museums, galleries, and historic sites to you.
Making cultural access inclusive, collaborative, and endlessly expandable, Curatours allows you to join friends and strangers in both guided and private tours, across a plethora of exhibits and interactive stories."

Overview

Curatours hosts a wide range of cultural experiences across multiple platforms, offering accessible, social, and edutcational virtual exhibits. Alongside contributing to the platform as a whole, I was deeply involved in developing one of its latest additions: the Bradford District Museums & Galleries (BDMG) exhibit. This exhibit journeys players through defining eras of Bradford District's history — from Ilkley Moor in 2500 BC to Belle Vue Studio in 1975 AD — led by Pepper, a friendly peppered moth who acts as the exhibit's guide.

BDMG Exhibit

Created in partnership with Bradford District Museums & Galleries, the exhibit required close collaboration with both stakeholders and the Cooperative Innovations team. My role was to help deliver an experience that remained engaging while intentionally gentle and guided, allowing players to absorb historical information at a comfortable pace.

Narrative Systems

Narrative delivery is central to the exhibit. Each room features curated historical content supported by optional interactive elements that unlock at specific moments.

I developed the narrative director systems that structure the entire experience; directing Pepper’s movement, triggering dialogue, progression, and activating interactive elements at the appropriate time.

Most of the exhibit is delivered locally to each player, allowing them to explore at their own pace. However, select moments, such as the Bolling Hall Ghost Room, are networked to create a shared experience for all visitors.

Moth Talk

I also created Pepper’s dialogue system, which handles both audio playback and an accessible speech‑bubble. The text animates with a typewriter effect timed to the length of the audio, with additional buffer time to ensure readability.

To support players who prefer to explore freely, I added a dynamic audio‑dampening feature: Pepper’s voice lowers when the player looks away, allowing them to focus on environmental details or interactive elements without overlap from the key narrative delivery.

Destination Display

I designed and developed the destination display’s odometer‑style character scroll, which cycles through letters and numbers at a consistent rate before settling on the selected destination.

The effect was inspired by old train‑station departure boards, where characters would tick over to reveal updated information.