Torres Strait Virtual Reality: A Reflection on the Intersection between Culture, Game Design and Research

This article is a reflection on the development of Torres Strait Virtual Reality (TSVR), a virtual reality game created to raise awareness of one of Australia’s First Nations people, Torres Strait Islanders. Through the development of TSVR, the author discovered that the processes of cultural protoc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Games and Culture
Main Author: Loban, Rhett
Other Authors: University of New South Wales
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 2021
Subjects:
Human-Computer Interaction
Applied Psychology
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Anthropology
Communication
Cultural Studies
First Nations
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15554120211020383
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/15554120211020383
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/15554120211020383
Description
Summary:This article is a reflection on the development of Torres Strait Virtual Reality (TSVR), a virtual reality game created to raise awareness of one of Australia’s First Nations people, Torres Strait Islanders. Through the development of TSVR, the author discovered that the processes of cultural protocols, game design and research, intersected and enriched each other to produce a culturally sound and culturally centred game. This article explores project examples of these intersections, such as the converging practices of community engagement and playtesting, and the role of Indigenous cultural influences in game design choices. The cultural focus of TSVR is best represented through the Torres Strait Cultural Tree as a conceptual framework. The Torres Strait Cultural Tree exemplifies how cultural traditions and knowledge can be used to anchor cultural reproductions in new mediums and offers an Indigenous cultural framework for developing cultural-centred games.

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