Reviving the ancient art of 'pot casting'

A virtual reality project of UNESCO, supported by Chinese tech giant Tencent, aims to promote traditional Chinese games.

At upscale parties during ancient China's Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), the host would often invite his guests to a game of "pot casting" where, between drinks and ad-libbed lines of poetry, they would take turns to try and throw arrows by hand into a long-necked pot from afar.

By the end of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), this traditional Chinese game that had been popular for around 2,000 years had all but disappeared from existence. To revive this lost art, a team of six students from the Communication University of China have reinvented this ancient game of artistry and precision using virtual reality.

In January, the game was showcased at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris as part of its Open Digital Library on Traditional Games project.

Renamed hu, which was inspired by the pitch arc of the arrows, the game renders the wooden interior of an ancient Chinese chamber.

Strapping on the VR headsets, players will find themselves in the carpeted center of the chamber, surrounded by the furniture of olden times－a writing desk, a high-backed chair, a sword, a Chinese zither, a tea stand and two stools－as works of calligraphy adorn the walls.

"We based our design on historical grounds, particularly those of the Qing Dynasty," says Liu Ting, 22, one of the VR game's art designers.

Liu says they took screenshots of indoor scenes from the 2010 TV series rendition of Cao Xueqin's epic novel, The Dream of the Red Mansions, and used it as a model for their interior designs.