THE ACT OF SHOPPING
A VR Interactive Game
The Act of Shopping is a VR Interactive Supermarket game about the consequences of our shopping basket.
The aim of the game is to inform people about the result of the choices we make during grocery shopping. It is an attempt to make the players ponder upon the impact of their choices on their own health and also on the wider environment that is, the health of the Earth. The game will challenge its players to buy listed products with an allotted amount of money or in a given amount of time. The player goes home with a physical receipt with the consequences of the purchases made at the virtual supermarket.
Any choice in grocery shopping involves a series of viables and the game focuses on these viables. There are three main factors affecting the final result as the player enters into the Virtual Supermarket- Money in the wallet or time, One’s own health and the health of the environment. The game examines the grocery shopping behaviour by exploring the relationship between these factors.
From impulse buying to buying in bulk, we end up overspending without realizing. This can be the result of the supermarkets’ sales tactics or our own lack of planning. The consequence is that we leave the market buying more and probably wasting more.
A casual stroll down a grocery aisle shows that it’s not easy to determine the environmental impacts of any given food item. In the VR Interactive game, players will have to take into consideration the health of the environment, which otherwise we usually ignore.
Educating people to make little changes in their dietary behaviours could be a key action towards a reduction of environmental impact of the diet without ignoring the effect of diet on their health. It’s not black and white but there are some easy choices. The solution is to make informed choices, which is the primary aim of the project. Through the VR interactive game, players will be exposed to the main factors influencing the act of shopping.
Given the project timeline and understanding the feasibility of it, I decided to collaborate with Akshay Jain, a student of M.A Games Designs at University of Arts London, with four years of work experience in designing and developing mobile applications.
Here’s a sneak peek of the project:
