DISSERTATIONS
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STORYTELLING AND EMPATHY WITHIN VIDEOGAMES
The aim of this paper is to understand how videogames create a link and evoke empathy using storytelling, focusing on how the Last Day Of June (Ovosonic,2017) has connected with their players and affected their emotions through their narrative. This paper draws on past research on storytelling and empathy, accompanied by a series of in-depth interviews and stimulated recall interviews that analyse how players responded to the Last Day Of June (Ovosonic,2017), exploring the emotions of the players to determine if they felt empathy while playing and emotionally connected through the narrative. The results of the interviews suggest that players did connect with the narrative however each player reacted to the narrative differently, this is supported by the various emotional reactions and emotions the players revealed. This is explored further in the paper.
SERIOUS GAMES FOR SERIOUS CHANGE
Videogames depict countless stories from every world imaginable, but serious games tell our stories from our world. The study aimed to determine if games as a medium could promote personal and social change through a story that evoked empathy around real-world topics. This paper draws on correlated prior literature and applications to explore theories and gather knowledge. Subsequent to this is the iterative design process which was used to produce the videogame Waiting. This is complemented by interviews and stimulated recall exercises for analysis. The results from this analysis suggest that the game did succeed in evoking emotions through its storytelling and caused some personal and social impact on players. This is explored further in the study.