Yuanning HanDesigner, Researcher
Dialogue
Academic Project
Individual Project
2024 Fall
Click here to play the game

The inspiration for my game comes from my experience during my undergraduate thesis project. Many of the ideas I proposed (almost all of them) were challenged by professors, which made me feel like they were opposing me just for the sake of opposing me. This kind of opposition didn't actually help my project. I felt like I could never convince them to accept my ideas, and everything I said was doubted, which made me feel hopeless. 

However, over time, I stopped caring so much about others' opinions of my project. I decided to stick with doing what I wanted to do — and the voices of doubt no longer seemed as important. This experience inspired me to design this "dialogue game." During the development of this game, I was, in a way, "healing" the hopeless, self-doubting version of myself. That’s why I named it How to Break a ( )'s Heart and Make it Whole Again.

All of the responses from the system in the game are based on the feedback that my classmates and I received during my final year of undergraduate studies. As the player persists in the conversation, three states will sequentially appear: both the player’s and the system’s messages are in text; the player’s message is garbled, while the system’s message is in text; and the player’s message is in text, while the system’s message is garbled. I want to present the dynamic of the conversation through this progression. This kind of scenario didn’t only happen during my thesis project, but could occur in any conversation in life. 

We may never be able to convince each other, and the only thing we can do is persist in our own ideas. Therefore, there is no concept of winning or losing in this game, but we can choose to end this "dialogue" at any time.
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