TITLE
Due Buchi per gli Occhi
YEAR
2020
CLIENT
Unibz
AREA
Videogame design
TAG
videogame, sociology, illustration, animation, copywriting, interactive, storytelling, UI/UX
CREDITS
Bauld
"Due Buchi Per Gli Occhi" is my BA thesis project, a satirical graphic adventure videogame about shyness and bizarre social mechanics and expectations.
Dr P. Zimbardo in the late 70s wrote that shyness is not a precise condition, but rather a wide spectrum of behaviours and thoughts. He was one of the first sociologists to suggest that shy people are not shy only because of their temper or their education; he pointed out how the rise of neoliberalism and globalization radicalized a culture of low self esteem and undeveloped social skills. Before him, Ruth Benedict analyzed the shame-inducing role of the Christian religion in the Western societies, while countless contemporary columnists have speculated on the monetization of the anxiety of the millennial and post-millennial generations.
As I was more interested into storming the collective cultural causes for shyness, rather than healing single individuals from their own psychological noise, I got the idea of an entertaining therapeutic treatment: a change of perspective on the world we live in. Are we really that socially incompetent and laughable, or are our social rules so hilariously absurd that we can't possibily follow?
By playing the game you'll be wearing the shoes of Marienza, an Italian college student dealing with dreadful social performances such as talking to strangers, speaking in public or even disagreeing with someone. Each episode jokes on how much we dwell on our "wrong" manners without seeing that our context is the only freakish glitch.
