Safe spaces : Prospect and refuge in VR design - safeguarding

 Beginning with the GDC presentation on Spatial Cinematography, I am going to focus on how virtual spaces use ‘prospect and refuge’ in the design of a game environment. 

I want to look at this to follow on from the previous post where I considered how an environment affects a negative emotion in a player in horror games. 

I am interested in whether prospect and refuge could support the player in helping them to feel safe when immersed in a challenging story that deals with a serious mental health condition such as substance abuse. The challenge is to provide a safe space for the observer without them feeling too vulnerable to the scene they are viewing. I think that the 4th wall would usually provide this protection in a screen based mode of presentation. 

Because of this, I am looking at examples of prospect and refuge in apps that support mental health in virtual reality experiences and how they do this. To begin with I am looking at VR experiences like Guided Meditation VR (Oculus). 


https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/929143807179080/



Refuge of an ice cave with an open view to the outside world. 





Sitting within a roped jetty with an open view to a lake. 

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