Week 5 Progress So Far

This is a quick update on all of the progress I've made thus far:

RESEARCH:

I've read the following books for my research:

Issues in Therapy with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Clients by Carles Neal and Dominic Davies

TransForming Gender: Transgender Practices of Identity, Intimacy and Care by Sally Hines

The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals by Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper

Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men by Lori B. Girshick

These books have offered interesting perspectives on trans folks that sometimes differ from my own. However, they are very dated, dry, and hard to parse. They serve as a reminder for why intimate and personal projects like mine are important to helping people understand trans people.

I've also ran a survey about trans people's experiences. So far, the survey has 27 responses and they're very informative. Some of these experiences differ greatly from mine (Especially trans men), others hit very close to home. Examples include misgendering (Sometimes on purpose), dysphoria set off by facial hair and other body attributes, and targeted street harassment ("Look, a man in a dress!")

I am currently trying to reach out to more trans folks outside of my online social circle to get a greater variety of replies. This is a tough and personal subject and a lot of trans folks would rather not be reminded of the hardships they face. The survey link is here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/XD7JNBB

MODELLING:

The brunt of my more "practical" work has been modeling. I have completed modeling all of the objects for the opening room. I've wrote what I'd like to appear in that sequence, so I'll hopefully be able to build that sequence in Unreal next week. Models are confirmed to work fine in Unreal, as I've tested that.

I've opted for a more cartoon style with toon shading because that style fits my personality more than more realistic styles. It also allows me to focus more on the game design side of things without having to worry about higher polycounts interfering with the VR tech. It's currently a bit rough, but I plan on polishing it in the later weeks. For now, it's important that I have functional models.

This wardrobe represents one of the player's first major decisions. The player will have to choose between two items of clothing. One a bit more daring and obviously feminine, the other a bit less so. At one point in the process, I was going to make the choice between "female" and "male" coded clothes, a bit of this idea still remains, but I felt that went against the nature of the game. One of the most difficult tasks with this game is both avoiding and embracing the stereotypical gender binary. In some respects, it's one of the only visual ways of depicting dysphoria and my experiences, on the other, it can be harmful to embrace these conventions too much.

Here is a bed that continues the overall "heart" motif of the opening bedroom. One of those conventions I've embraced a bit, is cute/pink/hearts equals a girl. This obviously isn't necessarily true, but I thought it'd be an easy way of depicting a more feminine person's room. It's a bit on the younger side, but I also like that the heart motif sort of represents the "second puberty" a lot of trans women go through when taking hormones. We also have a habit of embracing younger skewing looks to make up for our missed girlhood. You'd be surprised how many times I've visited Claire's in the last year.

Here are a few smaller objects that will be placed upon this desk in the final room. While the phone will serve as an important game mechanic, letting the player choose to accept or decline messages, the rest of these objects are just for decoration. However, I did choose the color purple for the purse, hairbrush, and lipstick to make it a bit more personal, as purple is my favorite color. Continuing with that personal touch, is this blue wig, which is based on my own.

FEEDBACK:

Supervisor feedback through emails and meetings has been very helpful and allowed me to come up with new elements of the "game" and retool some of my ideas. Notably, embracing more positive elements. These have been harder to implement, but when I think about them or someone tells me about their positive experiences being trans through the survey, I am all the more motivated to continue with the project. It can be very crushing working on something that reminds you so much of your hardships in life, especially when you already suffer from depression.






The main place I receive regular feedback is Twitter. In addition to posting images of my work so far (As shown), I occasionally bounce ideas of other folks. This has helped me come up with some of the game mechanics for the game. Here, though, we see a number of friends liking my work, and one telling me that it reminds them of another game. This serves as a helpful bit of visual inspiration moving forward.

CONCLUSION:

I'm putting close to the 40 hours a week in, although it's probably closer to 30 if I'm honest. The modeling is taking longer than I expected, but I've also started on it a bit earlier than planned. There are a few more models that came out a bit rough and some I'll be using for later portions of the game that are also finished. Collecting more survey responses has also been difficult. Social anxiety makes it hard for me to put myself out there, but I'm still managing. I've posted the survey in Discord chats and asked friends to pass it around. Unfortunately, the University LGBT meeting only had 4 other students and none of them were trans (Or at the very least, didn't say as such). That ended up being a bit of a dead end as far as the survey goes.

I'm hoping to spend some serious time next week building the first level in Unreal's VR Template. That should give me a better idea of what to do with the game. I'm also considering pursuing actors for the motion capture and voiced segments of the game.

Introduction

This is a production blog for my individual project for my final year of university. The project is an immersive sim about my experiences as a trans woman. The final product will utilize virtual reality to create a deeper sense of immersion and unease. I will be using motion capture techniques to recreate realistic behaviours to better flesh out the experience. The project will be constructed in Unreal Engine or Unity with the HTC Vive, if able to be acquired, in mind. Other VR headsets will be considered.

I have been researching trans experiences through books and social media interaction, but primarily this simulator will be based on my own experiences. It will mainly focus on the harassment, awkwardness, and general experience of presenting myself as a woman. This includes people following me and trying to take photos, stares and confrontations when trying to use the restroom, and general harassment when walking down the street. I'll also be trying to highlight positive experiences, as well, albeit this will be more difficult. These events are things I’ve experienced in real life.

The goal of this project is to help cis (Essentially, not transgender or non-binary folks) better understand how difficult it can be to live life as a trans person. In addition to the above experiences, I’m hoping some inkling of understanding of the phenomenon of gender dysphoria can be expressed. As difficult as the above experiences are, it is even more difficult having to present myself as a man in day to day interactions. That especially is difficult to convey to people. When reading about the subject myself, despite experiencing these feelings, the words in many books felt dry and obtuse. Academic sources weren’t quite getting the feelings across.

There are pre-existing games (Such as Laura K. Buzz’s Acceptance and Anna Antrophy’s Dys4ia) on this subject, some of which I have written about for previous projects, but I believe I have my own story to tell on this subject. I also believe that VR technology can create a far more identifiable experience than these already existing games. Personally, I’d also like to work with VR because of the career and educational opportunities that it presents.

This blog will help chart my progress throughout the year in developing this project. I hope to upload a new entry every week.