What we Made

Broadly speaking, the concept entails creating a VR world for the bereaved to handle their loss; To assist them on their path to acceptance. Upon starting the experience, the user is first greeted with a question regarding how heavily events are weighing on them today, with three possible answers. The chosen answer will influence in which order the user experiences three different activity types, hidden behind three doors. The rightmost door contains an assisted expressive activity, where  the user can make certain choices to express themselves without having the hard skills or intuition that could require, such as catching falling words to make poems, tapping steel pans to generate music, lying tiles in small grids to form mosaics, or drawing in sand. The middle door contains something similar to a guided meditation session; The users sees "themselves" - a stylized 3D model of a person wearing a VR headset - in an atmospheric, dark setting or a more colorful place next to a tree. Which two of these they end up in depends on the response time to the question. A faster response could indicate greater emotional distress, meaning the calming, darker place would be more suited, while a slower respond is associated with depression, from which we would propose the lighter scene with the tree. A calming guide character spits out stories and quotes about death and loss as they see themselves cross-legged from this outside perspective, just breathing. Ambient music, natural sounds (such as water) combined with the results of earlier expressive sessions described above show and play to make this space personal. The guide also asks several questions, "checking in" on how the user is feeling. This guide is also present in the background through-out the entirety of the VR experience, but less noticeably so, only sporadically commenting. Finally, the leftmost door allows the user to experience an activity or memory that they shared with their lost loved one. These will be numerous, and can be described by the bereaved subject before the experience is prepared. The person of interest is never shown directly, instead appearing as a silhouette, or constructed out of materials in the environment. As mentioned before, the result of the initial question determines the order in which the user goes through these three activity types (with the other two doors appearing locked, the guide will have a remark if the user decides to go through a locked door). The most negative answer will result in the order MRL (Middle-Right-Left), so the user can first calm down and be comforted, then allowed to express themselves before moving on to the "heaviest" part of reliving a memory (which can trigger quite some emotions). A medium answer will yield RL, since no calming down should be required. The best answer means the user is coping decently, so they will get the opportunity to go through LR, allowing them to express themselves after having confronted a memory.

Above is another early testing prototype with a user, Jan Kroger. Jan had recently lost his aunt so it was great real life feedback that we could work with and develop with. To see Jan smile and have so much fun from what we had created was very wholesome to say the least.