Theatre on Ice

Role: Lead Programmer and Researcher

Development Period: January 2025 - Febuary 2025

Team: Emma Burns, Sebastian King, Rae Watters, and Skye Winters

Software: Unity, Maya, and Arcweave

Core Questions: 

How does player camera perspective influence the player's ability to form state empathy towards NPCs and the player's character? How can we develop a game meant for researching a topic? What are the differences between text based narrative games and 3D narrative games?

Description:

In Theatre on Ice, players play through a short narrative story about two friends rehersing lines for a play when things get personal. Play through one of three different experiences to see the story through different methods. The experiences include a text based version, a first-person version, and a third person version.

Methodology:

Phase One: Project Development

The project initially began with extensive brainstorming and planning to coordinate our team of four developers to ensure that each of us where having our thesis be explored. After creating a schedule of tasks, production began with the team holding weekly meetings to discuss our work. For my part, I documented my journey in the following blog between weeks 2A and 4 of my course: https://u.osu.edu/dsn6400/skye-winters/

Phase Two: Data Collection

Currently awaiting creation of an IRB and then IRB approval.

Phase Three: Analysis and Desimination

Currently awaiting phase two completion...

Takeaways:

Through my work on this project, I have gained experience developing games for a research purpose. Additionally, I was able to learn more about the nuances between different forms of empathy research through discovery of the concepts state and trait empathy. Finally, it gave me the opportunity to use my experience of capturing motion capture performances through being able to incorperate those performances into the the project.