About Trapped: Senior Thesis
Trapped is a virtual reality experience to show what intimate partner violence (IPV) can be like and how it can affect the survivors, short-term and long-term. I never expected to create a thesis project about such a serious topic like this, especially to challenge myself with virtual reality when I’ve never created something with it before. I came up with this idea sometime back in 2018 and decided to work on developing the story and script right away. I want to bring more awareness to IPV and how serious it can be, even in what seems like such a short amount of time.
Trapped will be focusing more on primarily emotionally abusive relationships when it comes to IPV. Something like this can easily affect a person for years, mentally, financially, academically, and in their careers. Informing people about toxic relationships and how to spot the signs is a good way to prevent more relationships like the one here from forming. Educating people on this matter is important to me, as I have seen what this kind of thing can do to a person. This experience will be based on true events, to best share what these relationships are like and what can happen as time goes on and as the survivor heals. The viewer will see the different stages of abuse play out, up until the narrator does their best to heal and move on.
To create this experience, I will be using Quill and the Oculus Rift S to paint different forest environments to change and follow along with the story as it is narrated. The environment will reflect all the stress the narrator is going through, so viewers can see a bit of how awful being in such a relationship can be, especially when the narrator doesn’t realize how awful it really is.
I really believe this project can help people to some extent to learn more about IPV and how to spot any red flags in any of their relationships with others. I want to show that this can happen to anyone and usually is subtle at first. I hope to educate as many people as I can about IPV with this project.
