VR Game for Cultural Empathy
Cultural Empathy is a VR game to raise empathy and understandings on different cultures.
The game takes the form of the escape room, at earth where cultural misunderstandings brought on the collapse of the civilization. The alien, on a mission to destroy earth, gets trapped in and faces puzzles on different cultural behaviors to escape from the confined space.
PROJECT Timeline
2018-2019
Category
Storytelling
Game
Virutal Reality
Responsibilities
Early-stage participation on
Game Scenario Design
Programming (VR, Unity)
Interview
Collaborated With
Isra Rab, Laura K Horton, Kevan Murtagh, Leo Kosola, Matias Harju, Milla Määttä
Design Background
The world is full of diverse cultures, some are widespread and familiar but some are so distinctive and unique. However, due to this difference, we often misunderstand others’ cultures. Some people may ask with curiosity, “Why do Koreans use scissors to cut meat, why not with a knife. Don’t you think it’s weird?” or “Why do Mexicans have skulls made of sugar in their house?”. There needs some solution to narrow the gap of understandings.
The game tries to bring comprehensions and empathy on the practices of varied cultures. It’s not wrong. It’s just different.
Design Concept
The Year of 2200, the mankind living on Earth got extinct due to several serious war occurred from cultural misunderstandings.
The company Interclean has decided to explode planet earth, to make highway crossing planets. An alien agent (player) is assigned mission to press the button in the center of the earth to blow it up.
On the way, however, the agent(player) somehow gets trapped in the last trace humans have left. The place is the remains of the last humankind, full of cultural diversities.
Now, the alien(player) has to solve all the puzzles about those cultures, to escape from the place that hinders him from carring out his mission.
(Ending) Ironically, the agent gets impressed by various cultures and now thrown into confusion whether he should continue his work in charge or not.
STORIES IN THE GAME
Design Process
Process 1: Conduct interviews to listen to the voices of different cultures
Process 2: Extracting unique cultural factors to design game scenarios
Process 3: Game design and iterations(voice recordings, sound design, 3D art design, programming)
