Posts

Safeguarding : Deconstructing horror VR games

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  Looking at Screen Based and HMD VR, I began by looking at faiths Horror Design toolkit. As Mason Smith of Airdorf games talked about story and affect, in his horror game development, I considered that as horror games are intentionally scary and frightening, What affects are deployed in terms of mechanics, narrative and affect ?  It could be problematic, thinking about fear inducing games as entertainment. Horror games could be considered exploitative or maligning of mental health conditions but in these instances players are choosing to be frightened as they feel as if they are in safe place in reality. Given that this is a difficult thing to think about, I still think that the horror game genre has some really valuable information in them that could be used to design positive experiences, or conversely, presenting negative mental states in a safe way.  What do you want the players story to be and how do you want them to be affected ?  Protection: In The video Spatial Cinematography,

How is mental health represented in videogames ?

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 If you are interested in how mental health can be portrayed in games in a less direct way; check out Sea Of Solitude.  The game represents feelings of loneliness and depression through game design. 

Serious games : Mental Health

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   GDC: Lecture  Stories that Haunt and Heal: Mental Health and Game Narrative  In this lecture, 3 women talked about their lived experience of Emotional Abuse, Disordered Eating and Sexual Assault.  The apps are informed by game design principles and delivered through screen-based tech but could not be considered ‘games’.  The talk focused on the following:  Mental Health : Serious Games that engage with mental health issues in a non-triggering way.  PTSD & Anxiety : The Body in Shakespeare Park - Flashbacks (Affairs/abuse/sexual behaviour) Domestic Abuse : (Including Financial and Emotional Abuse) survivors of abuse  Disordered Eating : Anorexia written in 2nd person, relationship issues.  Sexual Assault : players will have a strong feeling that the female protagonist has healed herself.  E.g The body in Shakespeare Park - Lilybard.com  In the Keeper’s shadow - Lonelyegg.com/games/itks/ Shrinking Pains - Bit.ly/ShrinkingPains This led me to thinking about a serious game that focu

Research : Environment design for player mental well-being

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  GDC Research : Narrative Design, Spatial Design and learning through exploring (Experiential learning theory)   Today I have mostly been.. watching GDC Lectures :)  I enjoyed having a browse on YouTube looking at lectures from GDC on VR, Narrative and Environment Design looking at Narrative in TEL Healthcare as ‘informed by games theory’.. while eating some mcvities digestive biscuits and drinking tea.. A perfect Sunday well spent.  I am picking up the threads from the game-based apps I developed in my MA Creative App Development - Falmouth University, to focus on how to design spaces to support Narrative (Cinematography) VR Development, moving on to Narrative Design for VR and then finally looking at general principles in designing Narrative for games. I have made a few notes from the video, so I can form my own set of basic principles that I can use as a guide when designing a VR Narrative Experience.  I will need to add research on Narrative in TEL Healthcare and Mobile learning T

VR Healthcare research

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When designing the virtual environment in Lunarium VR (on my MA) I got really interested in how environment design can have a direct impact on narrative direction in terms of ‘spatial cinematography’. Having worked in NHS and private medical training delivery (for a relatively short time compared to others), it struck me how important narrative is in healthcare training. Often SME’s would talk about the patient and learner journey.  In addition to story telling, I have always been fascinated by the sense of proprioception (The sense of self in space and time) I have explored in my own experimental work since 2007.  I have produced various short animated content in natural environments, in the studio and in CGI software, while at the same time noting the response of my physical senses.  Motion Capture : reenacting and capturing actions from activity in natural environments Way finding at grinsbrook dale, Edale.  Black mirror experiments - immersive perspective shots.  Signs of processes