Reflections on Concept 3

By attempting to replace all storytelling with a series of challenges, I felt as if I had crossed over from presenting non-fiction issues to designing gameplay. I was now first and foremost focusing on creating a challenging user journey. My aim was not to entertain, but to create reflection to facilitate change.

I was, however, struggling to create challenges that would be meaningful for a wide variety of participants. Although the idea of isolating the challenges in the lab-like environments gave me more control of the content than previous concepts, I was still left with the same problem of using real-life information that would be perceived very differently by different people.

I considered filtering the participants by using questionnaires at the beginning of the experience, so that people with diverse cultural backgrounds could be confronted with material adapted to them. However, this would not be possible without me designing a filtering system that would contain my own inherent biases – no matter how actively I might try to avoid this. Basing the VR experience on such a profiling would also inevitably place objectification at its core.

I also realised that I had forgotten one of my learnings from “My Child Lebensborn”, which is that I need to balance the sad content with positive motivation in order to make the participant want to consume as much as possible of the challenging material.

This perspective is especially important when the goal is to motivate a change in behaviour. In her book “Reality is Broken”, Janet McGonigal stresses that you must place your user in the right mindset if you wish to change their behaviour (McGonigal 2012).

The interactions I had produced for the lab-like challenges in The Tunnel were probably too demanding. The topic of objectification is unpleasant, especially when challenged to experience it personally. I was also in danger of creating what is called ‘ludonarrative dissonance’  (Hocking 2007). I wish to create change for the better – to create understanding about the harmful effects of objectification so that we can avoid it. I could not really do this while at the same time subjecting the participant to the kind of objectification that I wanted to fight.

The VR experience I provide needs to contain beauty and positive interest to give the users the motivation to change and the openness to adopt the lessons the experience can offer.

I was beginning to see choices as being at the core of the whole project – both of the topic of CBOW and of an emotional and engaging user journey. Forcing the participant to make a choice creates a moment where they must focus on internal processing, having absorbed the impressions provided by our environment. The necessity of choice is what activates us the most.