First Person Victim: Developing a 3D Interactive Dramatic Experience

Interactive Drama in 3D worlds has great potential for communicating serious themes, however it can become challenging to organize the content in such a way that the theme is communicated clearly while maintaining the feeling of free spatial navigation in the 3D world. In order to address this problem, and to propose a way to structure content, we have developed the Interactive Dramatic Experience Model, which attempts to organize narrative events in a 3D world while keeping the freedom of spatial interactivity. In order to exemplify this model, we have chosen to oppose the classic genre of violent interactive shooter experiences by allowing the participants to experience the feeling of being a victim of war. An evaluation of the implementation indicated that participants experienced free spatial interaction, while still being able to acquire an understanding of the theme being mediated.