E-MOTE

Screenshot of introduction scene

Screenshot of Scene 2

Project: E-MOTE

Date: 2009

Description: In collaboration with a team of fellow Columbia graduate students (Darnel Degand, Shraddha Kamdar, Julian Oddman, and Amy O’Neal) for an advanced game design seminar, E-MOTE was originally conceptualized and designed to address emotional well-being and trauma among young assault victims. Game design, prototype development, and mental health research were conducted to consider how to design a fun, engaging educational game that could empower young assault victims on such a sensitive topic. The original concept was to design with the frameworks of a Robert Woods Foundation Health Games grant.

The setting for this tile-based Flash game is a museum that comes to life – each exhibit representing an environment where players must confront and overcome many of the challenges they encounter while trying to recover and cope from assault. Each player starts off the game by creating his or her own character, the first step to giving them a sense of control and empowerment. The game would be offered as an additional source during trauma treatment.

Some ideas and concepts experimented: the notion of imaginary friends, power dynamics, sense of empowerment, and psychotherapy for conceiving both game design and educational framework surrounding the game.  Some of the research pointed us to interesting research on narrative, personality, and myth with therapy by Dr. Dan McAdams.

Education/Design: Interactive narrative

Role: Game design, story development, research, business proposal document