Put Your Dishes Away
This VR experience intends to share the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through an interactive narrative. Users will step into the shoes of someone living with PTSD, witnessing their struggles in an immersive environment, increasing their understanding and empathy.
Overview
Put Your Dishes Away is a VR case study based on research about PTSD and its symptoms, with a focus on those less discussed in mainstream media. The experience aims to educate users about the daily challenges faced by individuals with PTSD, fostering empathy and understanding through immersive storytelling. It was created on a team of two, where I was responsible for research, programming, design, and audio.
Trailer
Technical Implementation
The project was built using Unity's XR Interaction Toolkit to create an immersive VR environment compatible with Oculus Quest devices. I created a system using UnityEvents to trigger various narrative and environmental changes based on user interactions. This included audio cues, visual effects, and changes in the environment to reflect the protagonist's mental state. The experience was designed to be both educational and emotionally impactful, using VR's immersive capabilities to convey the challenges of living with PTSD.
Key Systems
- Level Design Based On Real Data: The experience was based off of the real world PTSD experience of someone struggling with medical related PTSD. We interviewed this subject and their close family and friends to determine both what triggers we want to highlight in the experience, but also what those without PTSD want to learn about the experience of having it.
- Building Triggers: As the user completes many monotonous tasks representing the major PTSD side effect of depression, they experience triggers, which are characterized by loss of player movement, representing depersonalization/derealization, hallucination of strange objects melting into their world, and hospital sound and lighting. The strange objects are later revealed to be a personified version of a hospital room as the triggers get more and more immersive until you are floating out of your body in a PTSD world.
- VR Interaction: Utilizing Unity's XR Interaction Toolkit, I implemented intuitive VR controls for the experience. This included VR persistence throughout many scenes, including a home space and multiple gameplay scenes. It utilized both UI and real world interactions.
Technical Challenges
The main technical challenge was creating a linear experience that effectively conveyed the emotional and psychological aspects of PTSD while maintaining user engagement. To address this, I implemented a series of scripted events and environmental changes that would occur based on user actions, ensuring that the narrative flowed smoothly and that users remained immersed in the experience.
Another challenge was optimizing the VR experience to run smoothly on Oculus Quest hardware while maintaining high visual fidelity. I employed techniques such as baked lighting and efficient asset loading to ensure a comfortable and immersive experience for users.
Design Challenges
We wanted to bring the fear and uncertainty of PTSD triggers in a way that would reflect the emotional state of the person experiencing them. We decided to focus on the depersonalization/derealization aspect of PTSD, which is often overlooked in media portrayals. To achieve this, we designed triggers that would disrupt the user's sense of reality, such as visual distortions and loss of control over movement. This approach aimed to create a visceral experience that would help users understand the disorienting nature of PTSD.
Putting together this project, we made sure to do lots of usability tests with people both familiar and unfamiliar with PTSD to ensure that the experience was both educational and respectful. We iterated on the design based on feedback, making adjustments to the intensity and frequency of triggers to balance immersion with user comfort.
Gallery
Outcomes & Learnings
The game was featured in UT and SXSW's VR Future of Technology event and UT SDCT's Elevate Showcase, both in Spring 2025. This project provided valuable experience in VR development, immersive storytelling, and user-centered design. I gained a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities in creating empathetic experiences that address important mental health issues.