SYNC

Student Entrant 2017


SCHOOL
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
CREATOR

Description

You have lost the love of your life. Overwhelmed by grief, you sit by her tomb, flipping through the pages of the journal that chronicles your life together. So begins SYNC, an interactive visual novel designed in Unity using Affdex, new facial recognition software from Affectiva that works with any standard webcam. SYNC was created to consider alternative mechanics that could enhance the presentation of our narrative. We believe that controlling the game through player emotions and facial expressions has the potential to strengthen player investment in the story as well as player connection with the main character by having them literally come to embody her emotional state.

Players assume the role of Alex, grieving the recent death of her lover, Ivy, in a car crash. Unable to move on, Alex can't help but futilely imagine what she might have done differently to prevent the fateful accident. Players advance the narrative by syncing their facial expressions with those of Alex, such as opening their mouths to catch snowflakes or blinking to metaphorically erase text. Throughout the story, players are also able to adjust Alex's emotional state to match their own, altering the tone of the presented images and text. Eventually, Alex (and the player) is faced with a choice: to accept the doomed relationship so they can begin to move on, or to reject the relationship and remain trapped in the past.


Video