Back in 2016 and 2017 I worked as Lead Developer on a research project. The game was called Permanent. It was a ‘research through design’ project, the goal was to explore how VR experiences can foster other-oriented empathy. The game was based around the nuclear disaster that happened in Fukushima. Over 150 thousand people were uprooted from their regular lives and moved to temporary housing. For some of them, especially the older generation, temporary became permanent. Not being able to return to the lives they once had and not wanting or knowing how to start a new one somewhere else. A lot of them got stuck in temporary housing.
I was brought on at the start of the project as an intern. I was however the only the developer and over the next year me and Martijn Kors (the Phd applicant, Game Designer and Artist) set out together to build the best experience we could. We worked through the design process together, did playtests and found effective ways of achieving our goals within the project. I learned how to build VR games and how to use Unreal Engine. It also sparked my interest in applied/serious games. I am very proud of what we were able to achieve especially within the time we had.
