3.2 Design team process and products: student cases

3.2.5 Second student case: TMR

Case Study

The design team TMR presents their game Rataway which is a game concept trying to cure people’s embodied disgust through taking advantage of exposure theory and creating empathy with game character, Ole the rat, in order to make people engage with and overcome their squeamishness (the thinker role). This is done by making people immerse themselves in the digital gameworld and connect with Ole the rat (the coder role). In an effort to win the game and save Ole the players are then persuaded to interact with the gameworld through touching icky input devices (like molded cheese, teeths, slime and dead mice) (the maker role). People are compelled to conquer their squeamishness and embodied disgust by connecting to the gameworld and game character in such a way that the urge to save the game character and win the game overrides their squeamishness and disgust.

Presentation by a group of students from the Counterplay festival @Dokk1