Tianjiao Li
Serious Game Design for Life Education: Based on Stylized Visuals and Spatial Interaction
Game Name: Umoored
This is a 2.5D serious game exploring death, memory, and the experience of “letting go”. The player takes the role of a spirit travelling through space, moving across four progressively changing journeys and three memory planets that represent the final stage of life, despair after death, and eventual acceptance.
Drawing on Cognitive Metaphor Theory, the project translates abstract emotional concepts into spatial and physical interactions. Attraction represents attachment, resistance and obstacles reflect the difficulty of letting go, while increasing openness and the disappearance of obstacles suggest separation and release. Lighting, sound, object states, and environmental changes also respond to player interaction, forming a parametric audio-visual experience.
The project explores a gentler approach to representing death in games: letting go does not mean forgetting, but allowing memories to remain while continuing to move forward.
