Compulsive Hoarding (Serious Game)

This serious game was created to complement the treatment of compulsive hoarding disorder using Virtual Reality. It is the result of a collaboration between seven students and external psychologists with the goal of creating a game that can be used as a tool in therapy. The main goal of the game is to pick up objects inside a cluttered apartment and throw them away. Although that sounds simple to most, people with a form of compulsive hoarding disorder can have an immense problem with letting go of such objects. The overall gameplay loop allows patients to slowly get used to discarding objects, while their psychologist instructs and monitors them.

My primary role in this project was that of a gameplay programmer, with the main task of implementing immersive interactions inside the virtual world. Examples of such interactions are the picking up of virtual objects and the manipulation of containers (e.g., drawers) and doors in a way that feels natural and, more importantly, intuitive to the player.

Due to the time constraints of the project, I also took on additional programming tasks (e.g., spawning of objects inside containers), as well as other roles during the later stages of development. These additional roles ranged from game design and quality assurance, to helping out with things like the lighting inside the game’s main level.