Oculus Transformer
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | MODERNA TEATERN AB |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 300 000 |
| Project duration | October 2015 - February 2016 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | 2014-06304-en |
Purpose and goal
We conducted a workshop about norms, ethics and empathy, for 14 year-olds, as a IRL mock-up. Both process and participatory design break the norms of game design. We made stories about alienation and ´the other´ with theater-scenes and text as well as with the game, to increase the youngsters wish to reflect conscious about other peoples living conditions. Our first VR game built on input from the mock-up. The youngsters tested and liked it. We work normcritical with the games main character who has no obvious gender. We also made a prototype of the arrival of a refugee from four perspectives.
Results and expected effects
We follow current research in both VR- and game-design and work towards optimizing environments, actions and perspectives to best achieve the circumstances that will contribute to increased willingness to empathetic care of the player. Young people have been testing a VR prototype in mountain environment (the start of a refugee´s journey through Europe) and the VR game Make Happy - where you should make a lonely and sad school friend happy. We work with perceptual and cognitive manipulations but learned that VR technology has way to go before we can experiment with researchers as we wish.
Approach and implementation
This project is a collaboration between directors, scriptwriters and interactive- and game designers, 3-D artists and researchers from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience from whom we get the latest research. We always try to think outside our own ´boxes´ when we look for new collaborations. We still look for qualitative researchers to explore how the player look at the same person, narrative or dilemma before and after the VR-experience.