'In The Middle' is a single-player conversation-based game set in different public establishments. The player will have the freedom to walk around and interact with AI-driven NPC's whose responding dialogue would be based on realistic encounters. The user is playing the role of an investigator whose task is to find a specific person in the room. The target is described by their personal information and can only be determined through extended conversations.
The underlying purpose of this game is to build confidence and increase the user's conversational skills. The game is thus targeted at people wishing to develop these skills. For 'In The Middle' to be classified as a serious game it should 'assume to create an engaging and immersive learning experience for delivering a specified learning goal' (Ma and Oikonomou, 2017), it will therefore have the following design pillars:
The game takes inspiration from games like the Sims 4 Modded which has detailed dialogue exchange and conveys the characters body language reactively. The main source of inspiration, however, is VR-Chat. VR-Chat has a strong focus on multiplayer interaction, but I wanted 'In The Middle' to convey a more controlled, single-payer approach to that design.
The main reason for the design of this game is to benefit social anxiety sufferers. "It's a common problem that usually starts during the teenage years. It can be very distressing and have a big impact on your life."(Social anxiety (social phobia), 2021) For these reasons, I decided to make a game that could help lessen the distress. Since anxiety is common amongst teenagers, this suggests that a potential resolution could be through gaming.
'In The Middle' aims to build social skills, situating the player in a social environment when he can practice conversations using his voice. I decided on having actual voice input because of a theory presented by Fisher, Rothenberg and Frey, (2008) which suggests that speaking can aid with learning and productivity.
"If students aren't using the words, they aren't developing academic discourse...The key is for students to talk with one another, in purposeful ways, using academic language"
When the user actively talks, he will be more engaged in the game. He will therefore be able to develop his social skills more efficiently. Over many hours, the player will subconsciously train his mind to speak better during real conversations.
The essential difference between this game and VR-Chat is the single-player experience that this game provides. Although VR-Chat has proven to be a successful agent in social anxiety disorder, it can still be frightening for a lot of users.
<aside> 📕 “In the first study, 16 healthy participants were exposed to a neutral virtual world, a virtual blind date world, and a virtual job interview world. Results showed that exposure to the social worlds was associated with higher self-reported anxiety and heart rate.” (Emmelkamp, Meyerbröker and Morina, 2020)
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'In The Middle', however, avoids the issue by having a controlled environment. The game will provide constructive criticism through dialogue or body language with sensitive features to make sure the user is unattacked.