The environment
The main part of Otherself plays out under water in an otherworldly environment.The participant finds themselves on what seems to be a kind of roomy, disk-shaped, sandy and craggy surface approximately 20 meters under the water’s surface. On one side, tall rocks reach upwards, creating a wall. On the other three sides, the edge of the sea floor drops off into an abyss. The flat surface is covered by one to three meter high rocky ridges, creating natural corridors in the landscape.
Other than the sand and rocks, the landscape is filled with purple, lime, and pink coloured vegetation. The place is friendly and beautiful. The sand and vegetation seem to give off a soft light, indicating that the place is its own universe and that there should be no reason to leave. The water above the seabed is a blueish teal, but vague streams of light and a shimmering above indicate a water surface far above.
The participant’s journey starts on the sand in one of the corridors, which will help to give some guidance to the journey’s progress.
The participant can swim by doing swim-like movements with their hands, which are shown as translucent and rubber glove-like. At first, the participant will only be able to move horizontally, but gathering ‘spirit‘ will gradually unlock the possibility to swim upwards toward the surface or downwards towards the abyss. Gathering a maximum of spirit will make it possible to reach the surface or the large creatures swimming in the deep.
The participant sees the world through what appears to be a kind of biological, jelly-like diving mask. The effect of the mask will be heightened by the actual, physical weight of the VR headset that the participant is wearing.
The rim of the mask pulsates and seems to be breathing. Small specks of colour glow and move on the rim of the mask in a mix of light blues and pink. Over the mask’s nose ridge, what looks like a pearl shines and appears to grow every time spirit is collected. When the companion Oeba speaks, the mask glows and moves in sync with the words.
Spirit can be gathered by foraging pearls from the seabed or from anemones that can be found in groups on the rocks. They can be picked up and dissolve into spirit when squeezed.
There are creatures resembling sea urchins on the sea bed. If these are picked and squeezed, they explode and drain some spirit away. The mask glows with red dots, almost as if it is experiencing pain.
There are also small crabs running across the seabed in the area where the participant finds the first pearls. They are, however, too fast to capture, and they do no more than glare at you from beneath rocks.
The experience uses colours and sounds to give feedback to the participant. Picking up pearls is rewarded with beautiful animation and with Oeba’s contented utterance.
The epilogue — The underwater experience will gradually end and the participant will find themselves in a dark, domed hall. In the centre of the space is a column with a big fish bowl.
The dome is dark blue, with lighter colour up towards the centre of the domed ceiling. The fish bowl is fully lit and contains a mini-version of the Otherself universe. The participant cannot move, but can bend forward to look inside the bowl. The creature Oeba is still swimming peacefully inside.
The floor of the room is covered with pearls in different colours, and looks like a calm sea surface.
The participant is presented with questions and explanations about human decision making, and the answers are displayed on the walls of the dome. The questions will be asked but answers are not required. The goal is to create reflection about the choices, not to conclude. In the end, the given responses are combined with the actual playthrough choices of the participant in a summation of the participant’s decision-making process and explanation of how this process demonstrates human judgement and objectification. The participant is told about the link to Children Born of War.
The choice of metaphors
The need to avoid cultural input led me to choose to make the experience an unknown place needing to be explored, where anything could happen. The name Otherself is a working title, playing on the binary relationship between the other and one’s sense of self – but also on the space between those two concepts – the fluency of being in the undecided space before the binary decision has been made.
The companion is an unknown, and reflecting on the question whether the sentient being called Oeba belongs to ‘them’ or ’us‘ is an example of the undecided state before the being is either accepted and trusted or othered and pushed away.
Water - Humans need to breathe air, so being underwater is in itself an easy way to place a participant in an alien environment where they know humans don’t naturally belong. I also like the added metaphor of culture surrounding us like water – how we are immersed into our contexts - not able to escape their influence, but still not consciously aware of the way we are influenced. Water-dwelling creatures are also ambiguous creatures, where the distinction between themselves and their surroundings is less defined. Their shapes are soft and water-filled, not very different from the water itself. The name Oeba is in itself an abbreviation of ‘amoeba’ indicating that it is a kind of fundamental water creature.
Many humans are instinctively uneasy about shape-shifting creatures. Portraying Oeba as an octopus might have made it instinctively more difficult for a participant to trust the companion, although most agree that sentient beings should be judged by their words and actions and not by appearance.
Air – humans need air. I think that this basic human need will make the participant instinctively decide that reaching the surface to get independent access to air will be an intended strategy for the experience. However, the experience is also placed in an otherworldly landscape, which should indicate to the participant that they can’t or shouldn’t expect normal principles to apply.
The participant also seemingly has access to air through the unclear relationship to the mask and Oeba. If they attempt to reach the surface, it could be a sign that the participant is uncomfortable with relying on an unknown being. Considering the aspects of access to air is thus probably a meaningful challenge that can be a major motivational element in the experience, demonstrating how human needs instinctively influence our decisions. It becomes clear during the experience that a source of air might not be important.
Tone - Otherself will be a friendly and beautiful place. The participant should feel safe and as if they have freedom of choice and the chance to opt out at any time. The participant is shown how to exit the experience in the introduction, and given the opportunity to pass all the questions in the epilogue.
The intention is to shape this part of the experience more as a mutual dialogue than an interview or interrogation. The aim is to get the participant to reflect upon their user journey and interactions, not to create any conclusions. Any conclusions will be up to the participant to make.
The relationship to the companion
An experience solely based on a participant's choices and user journey will need to include challenges that motivate interaction. In Otherself, the first challenge for the participant is to understand the environment. By starting the experience with the participant being greeted - and possibly saved - by a sentient being, they are also challenged with analysing this new relationship.
As the topic of this research project is to explore how an adult can look at a child and see an enemy, the relationship between the participant and Oeba is to demonstrate how the participant's decision-making process goes back and forth, evaluating the quality of the relationship to Oeba. The way the participant defines this relationship will most likely also influence the interaction strategies they choose for their user journey.
The experience has a scene that is intended to serve as a turning point - or an escalation - of the user’s evaluation of the relationship. When coming to the surface, the participant will see their reflection and understand that they are actually not wearing a sentient diving mask, but are instead wholly engulfed by Oeba.
This dramatic change in the quality of the relationship is intended to lead to a re-evaluation of the relationship and motivate a new strategy for the participant. New strategies might be to accept and assimilate into Oeba’s world, or else to attempt escape or sabotage. The experience is programmed to register the sequence of actions in the user journey and to identify such potential strategies by analysing the participant's behaviour.
The participant first meets Oeba as a sentient diving mask surrounding their field of vision. The mask moves when Oeba talks and shows emotional reactions and the level of spirit available. As Oeba is otherwise not visible, it appears likely that Oeba is actually the diving mask.
Oeba informs the participant that they ’found you in time‘ in a cheerful voice, which is intended to hint at a level of dependency between the participant and Oeba - indicating that the quality of the relationship might be important to the participant’s safety.
Oeba continues to be friendly and helpful, reacting positively to the picking of pearls and warning about exploding sea urchins. As the participant’s relationship with Oeba develops, it becomes clear that although Oeba is generally supportive, there are situations in which Oeba appears ruthless. Oeba has no qualms about killing sentient anemones and might seem greedy and power-drunk. These qualities might create a rift in the relationship, or a rift might be created if the participant simply resents being egged on by Oeba.
Other elements in the environment
Pearls - On the sea floor, there are oysters scattered around. Retrieving the pearls inside them gives the participant/Oeba more energy, measured in ‘spirit’. The pearls pulse with different colour nuances.
Shells for pearls - Some of the pearls are placed in open shells, lying on what might be a ‘shell muscle’.
Anemones - On the rocks, there are creatures that look like anemones. If the participant picks up and squeezes them, a lot of spirit is gained and Oeba gets very excited. However, if the participant reaches out for a second anemone after having foraged one, the neighbouring anemones behave like they are frightened, bending away from the participant’s hand. Although the anemones show emotions that might make humans pause, Oeba still likes them to be foraged. The more anemones you pick up despite their emotional reactions, the more power-drunk Oeba will sound.
Sea urchins - These are spiky balls on the sea floor and rocks. They have fluorescent, poisonous colours. Oeba warns you that they are dangerous – they are intruders left there by a previous enemy. If you pick one up, Oeba feels pain and loses some spirit, which makes Oeba sad and angry.
Seaweed - There is both short and long seaweed. The participant cannot interact with it.
Small crabs - Small crabs live under the stones. They run and hide from you. They are too quick to be caught.
Large octopuses - Large shadows that look like big octopuses swim in the deeper waters outside the shelf that is Oeba’s world. They seem to move around ten meters deeper than the sandy shelf. If the participant manages to get close to them, the darkness of the deep will still make it impossible to see them clearly. These octopuses will kill you for straying where you don’t belong.
