In this paper, we discuss the gamification strategies and methodologies used by TRIPMENTOR—a game-oriented cultural tourism application in the region of Attica. Its primary purpose is to provide visitors with rich media content via the web and mobile environments by redirecting travellers, highlighting points of interest, and providing information for tour operators. Gamification is a critical component of the project; it relates users to specific sites and activities, improves their visiting experiences, and encourages a constant interaction with the application through a playful experience. In TRIPMENTOR, gamification serves both as a tourism marketing strategy and as a tool for encouraging users to share their experiences while exploring Attica in a way designed to meet their personal needs, interests, and habits. This paper aims to describe and analyse the gamification mechanisms applied, following the Octalysis framework, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of gamification as a tourist marketing strategy.

The Road-STEAMer Horizon Europe Program examines STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education policies across Europe, with a specific focus on integrating the arts into traditional STEM disciplines. Through the analysis of open-access repositories, official documents, and stakeholder interviews, this study conducts both a macroanalysis of European policies and a detailed analysis of national initiatives. The research categorizes EU member states into three groups: high-priority countries (Belgium, France, Bulgaria, Finland, and Germany), countries acknowledging the importance of STEAM with partial initiatives, and those in early development stages. Special attention is given to grassroots initiatives. The findings reveal significant variation among member states and affiliated countries, driven by unique national challenges. In many cases, STEM/STEAM programs are closely linked to broader societal issues, such as financial development, digital transition, and social inequalities.

The advent of the video game industry brought about new cultural policies in both the national and international levels. In particular, incentives and flexible funding programmes for the production of video games have become a key pillar of support for small, domestic, but also global game companies. In Greece, video game policy history has followed the developments and legal entanglements of gambling regulation, with serious national and international consequences. From the Royal Decree of 1971 to Law 3037/2002 that banned all games in public and private places until the most recent Law 4487/2017, which established a cash rebate scheme for audio-visual productions, this article aims to analyse Greece’s video game policy-making as captured through scattered laws, media articles and personal testimonies.

While most published research on COVID-19 focused on a few countries and especially on the second wave of the pandemic and the vaccination period, we turn to the first wave (March–May 2020) to examine the sentiments and emotions expressed by Twitter users in Greece. Using deep-learning techniques, the analysis reveals a complex interplay of surprise, anger, fear, and sadness. Initially, surprise was dominant, reflecting the shock and uncertainty accompanying the sudden onset of the pandemic. Anger replaced surprise as individuals struggled with isolation and social distancing. Despite these challenges, positive sentiments of hope, resilience and solidarity were also expressed. The COVID-19 pandemic had a strong imprint upon the emotional landscape worldwide and in Greece. This calls for appealing to emotions as well as to reason when crafting effective public health strategies.

We revisit Life in the Garden more than a quarter of a century later, aiming to leverage advances in modular storytelling techniques and large language models (LLMs) to address limitations of the original: (1) narrative incoherence and (2) the lack of a strong sense of authorship. We built an interactive storytelling system and co-performed the story in a live session to test participant engagement. The experiment produced both a screenplay and a visual comic in near real time. Here, we share practical insights from the process and lessons from participant feedback. Those seeking to create coherent and author-driven interactive stories may find this particularly useful.