Week 3 - nostalgic research

Nostalgia research

In my mystery idea, certain objects trigger memorising of the past. To know what can trigger that response I brainstormed what object can trigger nostalgic feelings

As you can see nostalgia is a broad emotion and that emotion could be triggered in different ways, e.g. when looking at a piece of artwork, it could trigger a memory of you being at the seaside with your family (sight). Or id you walk by a bakery shop and smell the bread that you used to eat when you were young (smell).

Because Nostalgia is such a broad concept I hope to narrow it down and find which sense would work for a game.

Sense of sight

This is an article about patients who have suffered from dementia but despite the illness looking at old photos was helping the patients trigger memories of the past. Nostalgic is a yearning of events of the past if one looks at an old picture they would most likely yearn the past, yearning to go back to that moment.

In the article, Martina Kane who is part of the Alzheimer's society talks about how reminiscence therapy issued to help patients with dementia

"[Many] deep-seated memories have a lot of emotion attached to them," she says. "You can tap into someone's positive emotions of their past and that can bring some positive emotion to them." Heyden,T. (2014)

Professor Bob Woods also goes into depth of the same topic

"In the dementia care world reminiscence is up there as one of the leading groups of therapeutic approaches," Heyden,T. (2014)

"Essentially it's a good way of facilitating communication, and so it helps people to feel more socially integrated and comfortable," says Woods. This is often as important for the carers as for those with dementia, he says, allowing them to see the person beyond the disease". Heyden,T. (2014)

"Aside from emotions and familiarity, the nature of dementia often means it's easier for people to recall older memories than quickly bringing to mind day-to-day events, Kane adds". Heyden,T. (2014)

Also the BBC article highlights that the sound music also helped patients as well.

"Music can be a really powerful trigger," explains Kane. It's not uncommon for talented musicians to continue playing long after other parts of their brain have deteriorated, she adds. Heyden,T. (2014)

How to use sight and sound as a mechanic

Though nostalgia is such a broard concet and can be triggered by many things but what I know so far in my research is that nostalgia can be triggered by the five senses, I have already came up with an idea for smell, the question is, is how to come with gameplay mechanics with sight and sound.

How will sight be implemented in the game ?

For the sight mechanic to be utilised to its maximum potential, I most decide whether the game will work better in 3D or 2D, I think 2D works better as I already thought os the game as a platformer.

This drawing shows how the sight mechanic could shown in the game, the plater moves foward picks up a picture, then the screen transitions to the characters face. This where the character was to decide whether to stick with this memory or disban it, to help the character they ahve thought bubbles, if the thought bubble matches with the picture then this is the right memory.

This isea uses the basis of the smell mechanic which was, you don;t know which memory is right and its up to the player to decide.

Reference

Heyden,T. (2014). The old photos helping trigger memories in people with dementia. Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29596805. Last accessed 4th Dec 2020.

Glaser, D. (2016). Why pictures trigger buried memories faster than words. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/18/pictures-trigger-memories-faster-than-words-neuroscientist. Last accessed 4th Dec 2020.