The Effect of Environmental Design on the Emotional Impact of an Immersive Storytelling Experience

September 2022 - Ongoing

Skills: Game Development, Wireframing, Literature Review, Experimental Design, Writing

Materials & Methods: TiltBrush, Unity3D

For my Senior Capstone project, I am investigating the effect of timing of participation in a VR installation on its emotional impact. In a virtual environment designed like a garden, users exchange audio recordings of their memories with those of previous users through the metaphor of planting and picking flowers in a garden. I am investigating which of having the users participate first (offer a memory then listen to others’), explore first (listen to others’ memories then offer one), or not participate at all (just listen) has the greatest impact on the user.

This project is in progress. So far I have designed the garden environment, which can be seen in the video below. I am in the process of gathering literature and developing the different iterations of the narrative. Later on in the academic year, I will design an experiment that tests the effect of narrative order on impact, and will report on it by writing a paper.