Award-winning Virtual Reality game raises awareness of the Bystander Effect

The game is a multi-ending narrative virtual reality (VR) project where the player witnesses Mara, a 22-year-old woman, gradually losing control of her actions at a social gathering after being drugged by an in-game partygoer. The player becomes the bystander and can affect whether Mara gets home safely or not through their actions.

Missing 10 Hours VR helps the player to understand potentially dangerous social situations and role-play how to be an active bystander.

Fanni says that receiving these awards validates the importance of this global issue.“

The support from this award means we can continue raising awareness about how to be an active bystander in an emergency situation and continue our research around impact measures at the School of Design Innovation,” says Fanni,

In creating Missing 10 Hours VR, Fanni worked with survivors of sexual abuse, conducting story-gathering workshops, and providing hands-on opportunities with the virtual reality technology to refine the narrative and experience.“

During workshops with survivors, we identified common stages of losing control and discussed options such as recognising when someone needs help and what to do if a survivor’s friends are nearby.

”We also consulted with psychologists who specialise in  the bystander effect to develop the story and mapped out secondary actions based on the four most common outcomes.”

At the end of Missing 10 Hours VR, the player has a chance to understand previous decision-making in the game and explore them from Mara’s perspective.

“I hope that players will realise how crucial it is to take action—if we can give people the sense of an experience that is predominantly experienced by women, we can change the world.”

SIGGRAPH is an annual international conference focused on computer graphics and the XR Dreamland Awards are a worldwide celebration of XR industry achievements, including virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, metaverse technology, and innovation.

Earlier this year, Missing 10 Hours also won the International XR Impact Award 2023 at the Doc Edge festival.

Fanni joined the School of Design Innovation in 2023 after a celebrated industry career as a creative technologist, videographer, producer, and virtual reality artist spanning New York, Hungary, Austria, Amsterdam, and Portugal.

She teaches various courses in the Master of Design Technology programme, including Motion and Performance in which students create digital animated sequences with a strong focus on using character-based animation to convey compelling and emotive narratives, Digital Asset Creation: Auaha Huarawa Matihiko where students explore and develop art and animation assets for game design, and Creative Coding for Digital Content/Waehere Auaha that teaches computer graphics techniques used in the film industry.