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Hedge hug -- a narrative-driven interactive exploration on low self-esteem and social anxiety
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Hedge hug -- a narrative-driven interactive exploration on low self-esteem and social anxiety
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Content
Hedge Hug
A narrative-driven interactive exploration on low self-esteem and social anxiety
by
Mengqing “Claire” Hu
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)
May 2022
Copyright 2022 Mengqing Hu
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the
bravest thing that we’ll ever do.”
— Brené Brown
ii
Acknowledgments
Hedge Hug is a project that would never have happened if not for the support of all
those caring and kindhearted individuals in my life.
To USC IMGD Class ‘22, whose love, passion, and support helped me learn, reflect,
grow, and live. I cherish our precious memories of talking, smiling, laughing,
hugging, crying, fearing, su ering, and surviving together.
To my team, without whom this project would be way too short, way too narrow,
and way too abbreviated.
To Tracy Fullerton, for her incredibly insightful feedback and keen eyes for details.
To Marientina Gotsis, for her precious energy and remarkable knowledge of relevant
fields.
To Martzi and Laird, for their support and encouragement, that gently pushed me to
cross the finishing line.
To Peter Brinson, whose self-armation notes are always heartwarming to hear.
To Ed Soohoo, for his inspirational talks and thoughts across the board.
To the rest of the faculty in IMGD, whose knowledge and wisdom helped guide our
way.
To Michael Chu and Joanna Shen, who encouraged me to go out of my comfort
zone, making this a reality.
To Oliver Li and Royal, whose love kept me going.
To USC, California’s sunshine.
To Emma, who showed me how it’s done.
iii
Table of Contents
Epigraph ii
Acknowledgments iii
List of Figures v
Abstract vii
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
1.1 Inspiration and Hope 1
1.2 Thesis Question 1
1.3 Project Goals 1
1.4 Team Breakdown 2
Chapter 2. Ideation 3
2.1 Prior Art 3
2.2 Narrative Explorations 7
Early Storylines 7
Finalized Story 10
2.3 Character Design 13
Chapter 3. Gameplay Breakdown 17
Chapter 4. Design Process 22
4.1 Feel for Emma, Grow with Emma 22
Externalized Anxiety and Distortive View in Crisis Moments 22
Self-Care and Power-Ups 27
Resilience Building 30
Game Progression 32
4.2 Creativity and Immersion 32
Interactive Ceramic Making 32
Visual and Audio Explorations 34
Chapter 5. Reflections 39
5.1 Challenges, Personal Growth, Staying Mindful 39
Emma and Me 39
Team Management and Self-Care in Real Life 39
“Polish” 40
5.2 Future Next Steps 42
Mobile Platform, Interaction, and Intimacy 42
The Future Game Loop 42
Chapter 6. Conclusion 44
Bibliography 45
iv
List of Figures
1.1. Sketch of Hedge Hug ’s Title Screen vii
2.1. Gameplay Screenshots from Assemble with Care (UsTwo Games, 2019) 3
2.2. Gameplay Screenshots from Lost Words: Beyond the Pages
(Sketchbook Games, 2020) 4
2.3. Gameplay Screenshots from South of the Circle (State of Play, 2020) 5
2.4. Screenshot from Kiki’s Delivery Services (Miyazaki, 1990) 6
2.5. Gameplay Screenshots from Kind Words (Popcannibal, 2019) 6
2.6. Story beats of an early story version 8
2.7. Story beats of story ver.3 9
2.8. Relevant content for non-player characters in story ver.3 9
2.9. Excerpt from the game macro sheet - climax moments 11
2.10. Excerpt from the game macro sheet - Act 3 12
2.11. Concept arts and explorations of Emma 13
2.12. Finalized concept art of Emma 13
2.13. Early sketches and turnaround of Emma 14
2.14. Finalized neutral, anxious, and upset expressions of Emma 14
2.15. Playtest data charts showing players’ impressions of Emma 15
2.16. Concept arts of Laura; Characters references from Animal Crossing series
(Nintendo, 2001-2020) 16
2.17. Character art of Laura and Emma 16
3.1. Game loop flow chart 17
3.2. First local art exhibit cinematics 18
3.3 First crisis moment mini-game 18
3.4. Dialogue with branching choice 19
3.5. Rerouting journal entries 20
3.6. Nighttime sequence 21
4.1. An early prototype of social anxiety representation 22
4.2. Chart of playtest data comparison for core mechanic iterations 23
v
4.3. 1st iteration of the core mechanic 24
4.4. 2nd Iteration of the core mechanic-frame 1 24
4.5. 2nd Iteration of the core mechanic-frame 2 25
4.6. Playtest data chart relevant to crisis moments 25
4.7. 2nd Iteration of the core mechanic 26
4.8. Visual make-over of the core mechanic 26
4.9. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (Beck, 2020) from Dr. Priyanka Kumari,
Patna University 28
4.10. Self-care mini-games 29
4.11. Resilience border prototype 30
4.12. Screenshot of Metaphor Visualization: The Resilience Scale
(FrameWorks Institute, n.d.) 31
4.13. Concept art of growing resilience border 32
4.14. Self-care montage sequences 32
4.15. Interactive ceramic-making prototype 33
4.16. Chart of player responses relevant to ceramic-making 33
4.17. Interactive ceramic-making with more features 34
4.18. An early version of emotional arc and color scripts 35
4.19. Color script based on Emma’s emotions 36
4.20. Characters Line-Up 36
4.21. A corner of Emma’s room 37
4.22. Local art exhibit space 37
5.1. Initially planned game loop 43
vi
Abstract
Hedge Hug is a 2D narrative-driven adventure PC/MAC game that explores low
self-esteem and social anxiety issues through interactive narrative-driven
mini-games and emotional gameplay moments. The story is told through the lens
of a caring and sensitive hedgehog – Emma. Emma is a ceramic artist who
struggles to love and trust herself, but slowly gains resilience from a supportive
friend, self-care, and mindfulness practices over the course of the game.
The project tries to allow players to channel their feelings with Emma through
narrative-driven interactions, gameplay scenarios, as well as visual/audio transition
and progression. Hedge Hug ’s game sequences and mechanics externalize Emma’s
inner states and thoughts, giving players the time and space to sympathize and
ponder. Our goal is to raise awareness of low self-esteem issues and mental
struggles, to evoke players’ self-reflection on the importance of loving and
accepting themselves, and to provide a safe environment for Emma and players to
explore accessible self-care techniques to help them battle anxiety and moments
of self-doubt.
Fig. 1.1. Sketch of Hedge Hug ’s Title Screen by Rachel Perry, February 2022
vii
Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1 Inspiration and Hope
Low self-esteem is a highly prevalent issue in modern society, especially for
children and adolescents. (Biddle et al., 2019) As a form of negative thinking style,
low self-esteem can significantly a ect people’s quality of life (Nguyen et al., 2019).
It is also associated with many other negative behavioral, physical, and mental
health issues, including social anxiety (Zhang et al., 2019), depression, suicidal
ideation (Nguyen et al., 2019), and more.
The initial idea of Hedge Hug originated from personal stories and experiences, true
friendships, and deep concerns for individuals su ering from destructive e ects of
low-self esteem and social anxiety. This idea and message inspired and attracted
many people with similar experiences to join and guide my way, who poured their
hearts and soul into this project. Ideally, if someone discovers and plays this game,
they may stop their persistent feelings of loneliness or wariness of "the world being
against them" and begin working towards a better tomorrow.
1.2 Thesis Question
How can I represent emotional struggles and negative internal distortions through
interactive metaphors to help players recognize low self-esteem’s destructive
e ects, and reflect on the importance of self-care?
1.3 Project Goals
Experience Goals
Throughout the gameplay, players will feel struggle and frustration like Emma does;
understand what low self-esteem and social anxiety feel like in relatable daily life
situations; and become emotionally connected and empathetic towards the
character’s externalized inner struggle as well as self reflect, gaining new
perspectives.
1
Target Audiences
The game may be enjoyed by players aged 13 and older. It is entertaining for all
audiences but primarily targeted to teenagers or adolescents experiencing or
curious to learn about low self-esteem.
1.4 Team Breakdown
Hedge Hug was initiated by myself and realized by a team of 13+ people for the
majority of its development process. Because many ideas and designs of this
project are the results of our collective e orts, I will use first-person, or plural
pronouns throughout the paper as appropriate in each situation.
As of March 2022, the team has the following members:
Mengqing “Claire” Hu - Creative Director, Engineer, UI/UX Designer
Timothy Pryor - Producer
Marielle Brady - Gameplay Designer, User Researcher, Narrative Designer
Alice Qiao - Gameplay Designer, User Researcher
Elsa Liu - Gameplay Designer
Shenqi “Barry” Ye - Lead Engineer
Yi Dai - Engineer
Sze Tien "Stella" Chen - Art Lead
Sakura "Rachel" Perry - Character Artist
Celine Tang - UI/UX Designer and Artist, Background Artist
Claire Barnhart - Background Artist
Brett Bailey - Composer, Sound Designer
Katy Kellenberg - Writer
Alexandria “Alex” Morales - Narrative Designer
Other early progress contributors:
Hanxiu “Hannah” Zhang - Composer
Naomi Shro -Mehta - Producer
Jiaxuan “Olivia” Yin - Art Direction Researcher
2
Chapter 2. Ideation
2.1 Prior Art
In the process of developing Hedge Hug , our concept and design were greatly
influenced and inspired by a variety of media, literature, research, and our personal
experiences. This section details some of those works and how they contributed to
this interactive project.
Assemble with Care (UsTwo Games, 2019)’s story develops around di erent broken
antiques and objects that carry tons of precious memories. As an antique restorer,
its protagonist Maria ends up repairing townsfolks’ relationships surrounding those
items and eventually reconnects with her loved ones. Players focus on restoring
those items by moving small pieces around to fix mechanical errors and piece back
broken objects. The game’s puzzles, story progression, and interrelationships
between mechanics and narrative feel delightful, heartfelt, and elegantly
complement each other, which inspired me both thematically and mechanically.
Fig. 2.1. Gameplay Screenshots from Assemble with Care (UsTwo Games, 2019)
In Hedge Hug , our narrative and gameplay direction is also driven by “repairing” a
broken ceramic that externalizes the character’s inner struggle. However, di erent
from Assemble with Care , our gameplay moments and stories focus more on
3
self-awareness, self-reflection, as well as acceptance of oneself and past
unpleasant experiences.
Fig. 2.2. Gameplay Screenshots from Lost Words: Beyond the Pages (Sketchbook Games, 2020)
Lost Words: Beyond the Pages (Sketchbook Games, 2020) is focused on text-based
puzzles, where players manipulate and interact with emotionally provoking words
or phrases to join the protagonist’s emotional journey, and help them overcome
challenges. Those carefully crafted puzzles and corresponding subtle visual shifts
and progressions – like font, word placements, or text size/color – elegantly
externalized the character’s inner struggles, made the adventure compelling and
intimate, and intertwined player interactions with narrative elements.
One of Hegde Hug’s goals is to expose and highlight the character’s inner thoughts
and emotional challenges through interactivity. Therefore, Lost Words: Beyond the
Pages provides us with great references and brilliant use cases on how to better
connect players with the character emotionally, and to encourage players to be
more observant and caring towards the character’s struggles.
4
Fig. 2.3. Gameplay Screenshots from South of the Circle (State of Play, 2020)
South of the Circle (State of Play, 2020) is a narrative adventure set in the times of
the 1960’s Cold War, where a Cambridge academic – Peter – fights for his survival in
Antarctica. While exploring abandoned posts and other sites and looking for help,
Peter has memory flashbacks to his life and romantic relationship with Clara back
at the university.
When Peter encounters critical situations, such as a crash-landed plane with a
badly injured pilot in need of his help, or endearing memory flashbacks between
Clara and him, players are given choices for Peter to express di erent emotions –
being panic, calm, shy, etc. Those emotional expressions are represented using
distinguishable colors and animated simple shapes, making the gameplay and
interactions feel immersive and realistic. We took inspiration from their use of
symbols and visuals to enhance our visual metaphor and mini-games.
5
Fig. 2.4. Screenshot from Kiki’s Delivery Services (Miyazaki, 1990)
Kiki’s Delivery Services (Miyazaki, 1990) is a movie that taps into my heart. In this
movie, 13-year-old Kiki is a young witch who is trying to find her place in the world.
After moving into a new town, because of her insecurities, she starts to question
herself and loses her magic abilities until she overcomes those self-doubts. Her
story has lots of relatable elements that resonated with my personal experiences
and research around low self-esteem. Seeing those thoughts and growing ideas
coming together nicely in an elegant and succinct story in Kiki’s Delivery Services
was encouraging and refreshing.
Fig. 2.5. Gameplay Screenshots from Kind Words (Popcannibal, 2019)
In Kind Words (Popcannibal, 2019), you can anonymously write a message or a
question about any struggles/issues/confusions you are facing, send it away as a
letter, and simply wait for other players to respond. In the meantime, you can open
up your “mailbox” and start writing back to give others encouragement or advice. It
6
creates a space that takes away the pressure of asking for help, and it makes me
smile, laugh, cry, and love – all in a short amount of time. The community existing
around this game is surprisingly caring and loving, which I believe stemmed from
the lovely relaxing music, touching and encouraging prompts, and real love, care,
and struggle players all share through their written messages. Its interactivity is
very limited, but the “narrative” and “gameplay” have endless emergent possibilities
as players create new memories and heartfelt moments together.
The safe and enjoyable space created in Kind Words inspired me to do the same for
Emma and my players. I want to create a similarly safe and comfortable
environment in Hegde Hug , which encourages my players to open up their
vulnerable side and self-reflect.
2.2 Narrative Explorations
Early Storylines
The very first storyline only focused on Emma’s social anxiety. As an incoming
college student, Emma struggled with making friends, public speaking, networking,
etc., because of her intense social anxiety. The story was relatable and succinct but
lacked depth in character development. After more research and soul searching
while building Emma’s character, I realized that Emma’s social anxiety came from a
deeper cause – her low self-esteem. (Zhang et al., 2019)
7
Fig. 2.6. Story beats of an early story version by Mengqing Hu, August 2021
This discovery led me to the idea of portraying Emma as a ceramic artist. Being an
artist highlighted her struggles as she needed to face external critiques and
pressure towards her work. Emma’s low self-esteem caused her to exaggerate
those negative remarks, to negatively distort and to internalize those perceived
“failures” as indications that she is not worthy of love. She struggled to enjoy her
artmaking to stay true to herself instead of pleasing others. Based on this idea,
another early version of the story was that Emma tried to fix her ceramic piece that
she smashed after a failed attempt to face the outside world. Talking to other
non-player characters along the way, they ask Emma to create pieces of artwork to
help them repair personal relationships, establish beliefs and boundaries, or
achieve lifelong goals. The process helped Emma realize the importance of loving
herself – she does not need to be perfect or flawless, and those broken places
made her even stronger than before.
8
Fig. 2.7. Story beats of story ver.3 by Alexandria Morales and Mengqing Hu, October 2021
Nonetheless, this storyline requires multiple important in-game characters, a
significant amount of exposition to establish their personalities and backstories,
di erent locations and requests, and more. It would have been hard to achieve
under the scope of this project and created narrative issues where it obscures
players' focus and did not connect them with Emma as deeply as I wanted.
Fig. 2.8. Relevant content for non-player characters in story ver.3 by Alexandria Morales, October
2021
Making a decision on the game’s arc was a real struggle. On the one hand, we
wished to present a hopeful story with adorable characters who eventually
overcame their challenges and can trust and love themselves. But on the other
hand, with such a short story for around 40 minutes of gameplay, it seemed
unrealistic for a character with low self-esteem, which usually requires years of
9
practice to improve upon, to simply fix her problems in an instant and never have to
worry about it again.
After long hours of discussions with my narrative designers, we concentrated on
one aspect of Emma’s life - making ceramics. Because of Emma’s low self-esteem,
she has trouble distinguishing her identity from her artworks, leading to negative
distortions about the audience’s reactions towards her art pieces and feeling
insecure about presenting her true self. This story serves as an opening window for
players to discover potential accessible approaches for dealing with similar issues
and develops a happy and hopeful ending that doesn’t portray itself as “living
happily ever after.”
Finalized Story
The story starts with Emma moving into a new town and participating in a local
ceramic exhibition. Her piece attracts a large audience with positive responses at
first, but as the exhibit continues, mixed comments and reviews begin pouring in.
Unfortunately, Emma’s low self-esteem leads her to focus too much on
unconstructive or hostile feedback. She tries to take care of herself, but another
stressful art talk in public pushes her over the edge and causes her to break her
precious art into pieces.
Feeling lost and shattered, Emma receives a call from Laura. Their call reminds
Emma of a precious childhood memory she had long forgotten. She remembers
those simpler times when she didn’t have to worry about anything else other than
the fun and passion she had for artmaking as a little kid.
In the end, Emma reconnects with her deep love for art, faces the pressure with
much more resilience, and starts to embrace herself while becoming more
self-assured and confident.
10
11
Fig. 2.9. Excerpt from the game macro sheet - climax moments by Mengqing Hu and Marielle Brady, October 2021
12
Fig. 2.10. Excerpt from the game macro sheet - Act 3 by Mengqing Hu and Marielle Brady, October 2021
2.3 Character Design
From the beginning of the project ideation, having a hedgehog as the protagonist
has been my first choice. Emma’s hedgehog spikes can grow and shrink based on
her anxiety level, giving players clear visual externalizations of her emotional shifts.
Besides my personal preferences towards lovely animal characters, we hope they
give the game world a fable-like quality, encouraging self-reflection. Additionally,
given the short timeframe that we have to tell the story, I believe in the power of
adorable character designs to attract players’ empathy towards the protagonist
when dealing with tough intimate challenges.
Fig. 2.11. Concept arts and explorations of Emma by Stella Chen, October 2021
Fig. 2.12. Finalized concept art of Emma by Stella Chen, October 2021
13
For these reasons, my artists and I spent months finding references and exploring
the right shape, feel, and texture to craft and revise Emma’s character art before
landing on the final design. As a result, the final character design of Emma and her
story contributed towards empathetic responses and promising impressions during
playtests.
Fig. 2.13. Early sketches and turnaround of Emma by Rachel Perry, November 2021
Fig. 2.14. Finalized neutral, anxious, and upset expressions of Emma by Rachel Perry, February 2022
14
Fig. 2.15. Playtest data charts showing players’ impressions of Emma, December 2021
In addition to Emma’s design, her best friend Laura also deserved special treatment.
I wanted to highlight the importance of true friendship in the story, and Laura is
always supportive of Emma and deeply cares for her. I decided to make Laura an
elephant because, for me, elephants represent loyalty, intelligence, and emotionally
stable beings, making them an excellent choice for Laura.
During the concept phase, we decided to let Emma and Laura share certain visual
details in their character design to signal their deep bond and friendship. For
example, Laura’s character’s color palette (bright yellow and light blue) is used on
15
Emma’s hairpins, and the floral patterns on Emma’s scarf are compatible with
Laura’s hairpins and tail.
Fig. 2.16. Concept arts of Laura by Rachel Perry; Characters references from Animal Crossing series
(Nintendo, 2001-2020), October 2021
Fig. 2.17. Character art of Laura and Emma by Rachel Perry, February 2022
16
Chapter 3. Gameplay Breakdown
Note: This project is under development as of the time of writing. The interactive elements, visuals,
and gameplay moments in the final version are subject to change. A general gameplay breakdown
is described below.
In Hedge Hug , the overall gameplay and available interactions are divided based on
story-based events and locations.
Fig. 3.1. Game loop flow chart by Mengqing Hu, March 2022
Safe Harbor
Following the narrative, players first see Emma moving into her apartment, chatting
with Laura, and preparing to participate in the local ceramic art exhibit. In general,
Emma’s room is considered a safe harbor for Emma and the players. As a ceramic
artist, Emma’s pottery wheel at home allows players to create a unique ceramic
piece, and Emma will bring this customized piece to the exhibition and use it to
progress through her darkest moments and the final resolution.
17
Crisis
On the other hand, when Emma goes outside to participate in the local art exhibit or
the art talk presentation on stage, on-rail cinematics push the story forward. These
usually lead up to Emma’s internal crisis moments, when she starts to feel anxious
and questions herself.
Fig. 3.2. First local art exhibit cinematics, March 2022
When these anxious crisis moments happen, the camera zooms in on Emma, the
music turns more intense, and an anxiety mini-game is shown as an overlay on top
of Emma. During the mini-game, players need to help Emma withstand the
challenge and battle with anxiety when negative comments from others rush
towards Emma’s sense of inner self and form cracks. As the game progresses, due
to Emma’s growing self-assurance and resilience, players gradually gain power-ups
to ease the challenge, and these mini-games’ interactive elements and their
behaviors shift based on Emma’s states.
Fig. 3.3. First crisis moment mini-game, March 2022
18
If players fail the mini-game (sometimes they are forced to fail by design), Emma
runs back home with tears on her face.
Self-Care and Laura’s Support
After running back home, Emma can walk around to interact with certain items,
such as her tea set, plant, or mirror, to engage in self-care activities. These
activities are presented as first-person-perspective mini-games where players
perform simple interactions to help calm Emma down. Besides helping Emma to
de-stress and relax, these self-care actions also gradually improve her resilience
over time.
Moreover, gaining emotional support from Emma’s best friend Laura is a vital part of
the game. The dialogues between Emma and Laura give players contexts of the
occurring events and their loyal and genuine friendship, as well as bringing back
flashbacks of their childhood memories to help Emma get through the dicult
times. During these dialogues, players have branching choices to make, but
occasionally their choices may be overwritten because of Emma’s low self-esteem
and overwhelming anxiety.
Fig. 3.4. Dialogue with branching choice by Mengqing Hu and Yi Dai, March 2022
19
Reflection and Stay Hopeful
After each significant event, Emma writes down some of her reflections and
thoughts in her journal. In the early stages of the game, these journal entries often
include negatively distortive views of herself or of the event that happened earlier,
but as Emma grows more confident and self-assured, players can eventually help
Emma to reroute some of them by erasing and replacing pessimistic and
self-doubting thoughts with positive or more objective ones.
Fig. 3.5. Rerouting journal entries by Mengqing Hu, February 2022
20
At nighttime, when Emma lies on her bed, her thoughts are also revealed as floating
texts around Emma as she drifts into sleep, dreaming of a hopeful future.
Fig. 3.6. Nighttime sequence, March 2022
21
Chapter 4. Design Process
4.1 Feel for Emma, Grow with Emma
Externalized Anxiety and Distortive View in Crisis Moments
To answer my thesis question and achieve my project goals, the most prioritized
and iterated part of our gameplay is the representation of Emma’s crisis moments.
During those moments, we designed an interactive metaphor to externalize Emma’s
emotional struggles and her negatively distorted view of external pressure. The
interactions are limited to simple drag and drop actions, but the e orts required to
get through those challenging moments seek to channel players’ feelings with
Emma’s frustration and anxiety.
The anxiety-inducing interactions were tested in an early prototype, and players
understood the character’s struggle and felt stressed and anxious themselves.
After settling on the theme and story of this project, I wanted to push further into
representing Emma’s internal distortions and mental processing.
Fig. 4.1. An early prototype of social anxiety representation by Mengqing Hu, April 2021
22
Fig. 4.2. Chart of playtest data comparison for core mechanic iterations, April 2021
The first step that we tried was to add a centered “inner area”, as Emma’s internal
world, with di erent colored and shaped interactive elements coming from all sides
to represent di erent comment types (positive, negative, neutral, and
constructive). Those comments’ impacts on Emma’s inner area would shift based
on Emma’s self-esteem and how she responds to those comments internally. For
example, in the early stages of gameplay, Emma finds it hard to accept positive
comments but tends to pay closer attention to negative ones, so in the mini-game,
the positive elements will always fly away while negative ones will rush into the
center.
To help Emma battle against anxiety, players needed to respond di erently to each
comment, mostly outside the internal area, such as dragging in positive ones and
dragging negative comments outwards. However, players mentioned this
mini-game’s winning/losing condition seems arbitrary and confusing because it
relied on colors shifting based on the amount of positive and negative comments
inside at the end. Based on players’ responses, we also realized that the
interactions and animated elements couldn’t accurately represent Emma’s
emotional journey and how she processes those comments and internalizes them.
23
Fig. 4.3. 1st iteration of the core mechanic by Shenqi Ye, September 2021
After many discussions and paper prototypes, we pivoted to let players focus more
on managing the internal area as a system instead – In the early stages, the
negative comments would rush into the center and form cracks, while positive ones
stay put outside by themselves. If cracks were created, players could drag in
positive comments to mend those cracks, and the amount of crack
formation/healing powers depended on Emma’s self-esteem status at the moment.
Eventually, in later gameplay, players would gain power-ups from practicing
self-care to help Emma to stay stable and calm more easily.
Fig. 4.4. 2nd Iteration of the core mechanic-frame 1 by Shenqi Ye and Mengqing Hu, December 2021
24
Fig. 4.5. 2nd Iteration of the core mechanic-frame 2 by Shenqi Ye and Mengqing Hu, December 2021
With this iteration, the system’s clarity and its symbolic meanings received better
responses from players. But it hadn’t clearly established Emma’s growth and the
mini-game’s progression, and we started to foresee the confusion of adding more
comment types into the mix. During the iteration process, we also noticed that only
emphasizing the healing e ects of positive external comments is not consistent
with our theme, because now Emma is only relying on external comments to heal
herself.
Fig. 4.6. Playtest data chart relevant to crisis moments, December 2021
To refer back to our initial goal, we replaced neutral and unconstructive comment
types with Emma’s self-doubt and self-arming thoughts. Other than that, we also
25
added a resilience border that would reduce the impacts of external comments
more and more as it grew. With this change, players could easily see the process
where Emma gradually starts to trust and rely on herself more when battling
anxiety and self-doubt, which aligns better with our core message.
Fig. 4.7. 2nd iteration of the core mechanic by Shenqi Ye, February 2021
Once we were satisfied with the system, we directed our attention to its visual
details to bring players a clearer and more accurate representation of the process
we wanted to replicate. In the meantime, we received feedback on the visual
metaphors being too similar to the insemination process, so we continued
explorations for interactive elements’ semiotics, textures and colors of the inner
area, and the resilience border.
Fig. 4.8. Visual make-over of the core mechanic by Mengqing Hu, February 2022
26
Besides the cracks created in the internal areas, we also introduced crack overlays
throughout the game. The overlay allowed players to notice the progression leading
up to the crisis moments and represent Emma’s tunnel vision, as those cracks
would expand and surround the screen as Emma’s anxiety level spiked up. During
downtime in Emma’s room, engaging in self-care practices helps heal those cracks.
This constant visual reminder serves as the connection between regular gameplay
and crisis moments, following game progressions.
Self-Care and Power-Ups
Besides highlighting dramatic situations and externalizing Emma’s emotions,
another major goal of mine was to explore accessible options for relieving stress
and personal growth and to inspire and encourage players to self-reflect. To
achieve those goals, I introduced self-care-relevant interactions and mini-games,
to let players help Emma to grow, bounce back, and relax before being able to
progress to the next stage, dealing with more stressful story moments.
Relevant Research
Even though Hedge Hug is not designed to be a clinical-proven project, CBT
techniques help inform our design decisions. Their well-researched approaches
provide valuable content and add depth to our overarching narrative and theme.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) (Beck, 2020) is a model of therapy that focuses
on developing skills for testing and modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking,
relating to others in di erent ways, and changing behaviors. CBT techniques are
intended for use by a licensed therapist in a clinical setting, but it is a good source
of inspiration for our self-care and mindfulness practices in-game. CBT emphasizes
the positive - to continually help clients focus on positive experiences rather than
negative ones. The goal is not to get rid of negative emotion - instead, make sure
that negative emotions are appropriate to the situation instead of distorted.
27
Fig. 4.9. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (Beck, 2020) from Dr. Priyanka Kumari, Patna University
28
In-Game Representations
Following Emma’s story, players are sometimes forced into fail states during a crisis
when Emma couldn’t handle the pressure. Those failed moments lead to Emma’s
full-blown spikes while running back home, crying, and becoming overwhelmed
with anxiety. When this happens, players need to help Emma relieve her stress by
performing self-care actions.
In the game, two categories of self-care options are available. We describe them as
“active” and “passive” actions. The passive ones calm Emma down from intense
moments that players can guide Emma through, including regulating breaths,
making a soothing cup of tea, and watering Emma’s plant “Georgie.” Nevertheless,
those actions do not help Emma to internally grow stronger. To build up her
resilience, Emma must engage in active self-care actions, such as seeking social
connections and support from Laura, giving herself a pep-talk, and in later
gameplay, rerouting negatively distortive journal entries that she wrote down
during distressing moments.
Fig. 4.10. Self-care mini-games by Mengqing Hu and Yi Dai, January 2022
Practicing those self-care actions not only improves Emma’s resilience, making
unconstructive criticism and self-doubting thoughts less impactful in the later
gameplay, but it also provides players with “power-ups” to help Emma defend
herself even better. The idea behind those connections is to signal that regular
self-care and mindfulness practices can help us be more prepared and bounce back
faster when facing unexpected moments of anxiety or crisis in real life. We decided
to keep those power-ups as button-triggered, so players still need to “activate”
29
them during gameplay instead of being a constant upgrade. This extra layer of
interaction is designed to represent that when harsh situations happen, we still
need to mentally stay aware of our emotional state and act accordingly to avoid
being swamped with our heightened fear and anxiety.
Resilience Building
In addition to the direct power-ups, like mentioned in the last iteration of our core
metaphor, we wanted to visually represent Emma’s growing resilience to connect
self-care activities and crisis moments, and to clarify the reasons behind game
progressions and varying behaviors of interactive elements in anxiety mini-games.
To represent protection and the idea of “growing”, we designed our first pass of the
resilience border to be a glowing circle surrounding Emma’s inner area, which
grows thicker and brighter as the game progresses. But with this design, some of
the playtesters mentioned that they interpreted the border as Emma putting up
walls, closing herself o , or rising individualism.
Fig. 4.11. Resilience border prototype by Mengqing Hu, January 2022
While designing the visual metaphors, the scale representation of resilience
(Kendall-Taylor N., 2012) was brought to our attention. It provides a simple and
elegant way to explain and visualize environmental and social impacts on one’s
resilience building, and also how advantaged or disadvantaged individuals respond
to similar situations.
30
Fig. 4.12. Screenshot of Metaphor Visualization: The Resilience Scale (FrameWorks Institute, n.d.)
However, as one of my designers, Alice Qiao, mentioned, “Sensitivity to positive and
negative are separate measures; in other words, how we respond to positive
feedback and negative ones are independent systems.” In this visual metaphor,
pushing the fulcrum to one side would make individuals more sensitive to one and
less sensitive to the other, but this doesn’t hold true in the circumstances explored
in our story and gameplay.
To steer away from unwanted assumptions such as “wall” or “individualism,” one of
the suggested approaches was to use patterned borders that do not strictly follow
the edge of Emma’s inner area, to lessen its similarity with a wall. We took those
suggestions and decided to use elements from Emma’s self-care activities and
forest-themed items to form the border, so their connections were visually
communicated and tightened. Moreover, leaning towards a sense of natural
progression indicates the idea of “growth” clearer and better explains Emma’s
progression in each crisis moment repetition.
31
Fig. 4.13. Concept art of growing resilience border by Stella Chen, March 2022
Game Progression
Following the tight narrative, the game, unfortunately, didn’t have many places to
stretch the gameplay so players could experience and experiment with self-care
more loosely and realistically. However, I did not want to simply cut them out, which
misrepresented the e orts needed for taking care of one’s mental health. Because
repetitive mindful practices are crucial for combating low self-esteem and anxiety, I
decided to imply them through short montages and cutscenes to show that Emma
routinely engages with those actions on her own before players progress to the
next stage. This way, we can avoid misrepresentation while keeping players
engaged at all times without the need for additional gameplay or story content.
Fig. 4.14. Self-care montage sequences, March 2022
4.2 Creativity and Immersion
Interactive Ceramic Making
To further enhance emotional connections between players and Emma, I decided to
give players a set of tools to channel their artistic creativity as Emma - being a
32
ceramic artist. The interactable ceramic-making mini-game allows players to feel
more connected to their customized pieces. That bond translates into their feelings
for Emma when receiving negative feedback from the audience and experiencing
climax and resolution moments in a more personal and intimate way.
Fig. 4.15. Interactive ceramic-making prototype by Shenqi Ye, November 2021
Fig. 4.16. Chart of player responses relevant to ceramic-making, December 2021
The early ceramic-making prototype received positive feedback, and players
showed great enthusiasm when they were given the opportunity to create unique
ceramic pieces and explore creative options and their artistic visions. However, our
33
ceramic-making prototype lacked research and clarity, so we continued to find
references, such as The Great Pottery Throw Down (Vanezis et al., 2015), to inform
its process and additional features.
Fig. 4.17. Interactive ceramic-making with more features by Shenqi Ye, March 2022
Visual and Audio Explorations
To accompany the impactful narrative-driven gameplay moments, we dived deeper
into exploring visual and audio variations to highlight Emma’s emotional shifts. An
important design challenge for me was to explore ways to better express character
emotions and anxiety levels other than a linear or quantifiable meter. Because our
emotions work in much more complex ways, a meter isn’t an ideal and powerful
representation of the relationships between Emma’s anxiety and self-care
practices. This challenge brought us to the following explorations in the realm of
audio and visual languages.
Audio
For audio feedback and transitions, we tried multiple versions of pre-written
soundtracks in the beginning. But those tracks didn’t work very well since the
emotional transitions are a ected by players’ performances in real-time. Eventually,
34
we added adaptive audio layers on top of background music tracks, so we are able
to add or subtract audio elements based on player-triggered transitions while
keeping the overarching emotional beats intact.
However, we couldn’t stop there, especially since many players play without their
headphones on. It’s easy for them to miss subtle music cues with all the
distractions in normal gameplay environments. Visuals were our next step.
Color, Saturation, Hue
Besides having Emma’s facial expressions and hedgehog spikes’ growth directly
mapped to her emotions, we started trying out shifting colors and blurring the
backgrounds, to highlight that Emma is too self-conscious and cannot focus. But
this didn’t communicate well enough according to players’ responses, because
those background shifts were mostly perceived as standard cinematic approaches
to drive attention, rather than being linked to specific meanings.
Fig. 4.18. An early version of emotional arc and color scripts by Mengqing Hu, March 2021
To imply those emotional shifts more clearly, we decided to use di erent sets of
colors for the environments and characters. Throughout the game, darker brown,
red, dark blue, or purple are used to translate anxiety, scariness, higher intensity, or
Emma’s tunnel vision through those overlaying cracks. In comparison, warm and
35
brighter colors such as green, yellow, and light blue represent happiness and calm.
For non-player characters, their color palettes were also chosen based on their
personalities and Emma’s impressions of them.
Fig. 4.19. Color script based on Emma’s emotions by Stella Chen, November 2021
Fig. 4.20. Characters Line-Up by Stella Chen and Rachel Perry, March 2021
Line motif
Like the color contrast mentioned before, we also set contrast for lines and shapes
in the environment and characters. For ideally empathy-evoking characters like
Emma and Laura and generally considered safe environments (Emma’s room), we
use curvy and rounded shapes, such as putting lots of curvy objects for Emma’s
bedroom to create a comforting environment as her safe space.
36
Fig. 4.21. A corner of Emma’s room by Stella Chen and Celine Tang, February 2022
In comparison to those safe environments, the exhibition space and the art-talk
presentation stage are composed of lots of straight lines and sharp edges. Using
those elements creates an uneasy feeling for those places where Emma
experiences the most struggles and anxiety-provoking situations.
Fig. 4.22. Local art exhibit space by Claire Barnhart, March 2022
37
The line motif stays consistent for other gameplay metaphors as well – cracks
generated from negative and harsh destructive feedback/thoughts have sharp
edges, whereas the protective resilience border surrounding Emma has softer
edges, looking cozy and warm.
38
Chapter 5. Reflections
5.1 Challenges, Personal Growth, Staying Mindful
Emma and Me
Coincidentally, or maybe implied by this project’s theme, my personal story over
this past one-and-a-half years was very similar to Emma’s journey in Hedge Hug .
My social anxiety and low self-esteem brought me insights into our designs and
story direction. However, it also carried tons of fear that stood in the way of
communicating with my team, connecting with helpful external resources, and
balancing self-care, anxiety, and work in my daily life.
Before production or recruiting started, I wondered if I should simply work on this
project alone or with as few people as possible, because managing a team on a
daily basis sounded incredibly challenging and almost impossible for me. I have to
thank one of the previous graduate students, Joanna Shen, who shared her
insights and encouraged me to practice skills as a leader in this rare opportunity
before heading into the industry. I truly appreciate her help and suggestions.
Practicing leading a team pushed me to go out of my comfort zone, to face my fear,
and eventually, and to begin the process of developing my confidence and
self-esteem. Just like Emma, I am on my way.
Team Management and Self-Care in Real Life
Leading a remote and mostly volunteer-based team during a global pandemic while
having social anxiety, as one can imagine, is quite a challenging task. On top of the
initial stages of panic and fear, I also wanted to stand by my beliefs and Hedge
Hug ’s core message of day-to-day self-care throughout our production cycles. I
learned a tremendous amount in the process of trying to balance taking care of my
team, myself, and project development.
39
Initially, I started giving my team too much freedom and flexibility, resulting in slow
production and leaving team members feeling unoriented. Then towards the end of
the spring semester, since some of the tasks were not planned ahead in detail and
not being properly prioritized, even though I tried to scale down bit by bit, it still
turned into a small chunk of crunching for all of us. During the winter break, I took a
step back to analyze our originally planned storyline and tasks, and I decided to cut
down the game’s scope almost by half to minimize the team’s burdens and stress
and encourage all of us to self-care.
Another issue that my team faces is that we are not large enough to have leads for
each discipline to build a more ecient task delegation and report system, while
also not small enough to cut back on individual meeting times. To remedy that, I
encouraged inter-team communications and cross-over meetings with larger
groups from multiple departments, so we could inspire each other and
communicate more eciently.
As a director, it is also important to get to know each team member, along with their
personal passion and skill set. This knowledge can help you motivate remote team
members to do their best work, and help you deal with unexpected vacancies when
volunteers have to leave the team. With each members’ strength and skills in mind, I
was able to source talents from my existing team to help out tasks outside of their
initial discipline and roles and to push forward, instead of trying to recruit someone
new on the spot.
“Polish”
In the beginning, because I wanted to focus on laying out story sequences and
getting ideas across quickly, I decided to delay polishing existing mechanics and
prototypes until later. This decision allowed us to push further with our game arc
and interaction loop faster, but the lack of polish negatively a ected players’
responses and feedback, hindering our design progress.
40
In the latter half of the production stage, I prioritized gameplay detail polishes
essential for gameplay clarity and for provoking intended emotional responses. In
turn, those changes helped us receive more accurate and targeted feedback during
playtesting sessions. Fortunately, this approach also alleviated a few challenges
associated with volunteers’ unpredictable availability and scope issues by always
keeping a playable and presentable project on hand.
41
5.2 Future Next Steps
If we have more time to develop this project further, the first step on my mind is to
finish our planned story sequences, to smooth out the overall game progression
and emotional experience. Besides that, the potential roadmap for this project
includes porting to mobile platforms, and another inspiring design idea that didn’t
fit this project’s scope but o ers more personal reflective moments and continued
support throughout players’ daily lives.
Mobile Platform, Interaction, and Intimacy
This game was originally designed to be a mobile project, but we set that to be a
stretch goal as PC platforms are easier to test on and revise upon. Even if mobile
builds for the game are not fully developed due to time constraints, we still
designed our control scheme, interactions, and mini-game features with mobile
interactions in mind. On mobile platforms, players can touch Emma with their
fingers, feeling the intimacy, and bonding with Emma more deeply. Moreover, the
existing camera movements would bring players even closer to Emma, making it
feel more impactful and personal. To iterate and port the current gameplay to
mobile carries tons of benefits for our project and takes us closer to our goals, so it
is a definite next step for us.
The Future Game Loop
At the starting stage, one of our developing ideas was to make this game weaved
into players’ daily lives instead of being a one-o story. The formerly designed
game loop is similar to games like Tabikaeru “Travel Frog” (Hit-Point Co., Ltd., 2017)
and Tsuki Adventure (HyperBeard Games, 2018), where the protagonist has their
own lives of meeting new characters and creating memories together, or, in our
case, running into stressful events occasionally. The game would follow players’ in
real-time, and players would need to come back to the game now and then to guide
and help Emma take care of herself and grow more confident and resilient day by
day.
42
Fig. 5.1. Initially planned game loop by Mengqing Hu, May 2021
The intention of this version of the game loop is to show players that low
self-esteem and social anxiety are not something that can be miraculously “healed”
in one or two transformations, but rather, it is a process that needs constant
awareness and reflection embedded in daily routine. It comes with ups and downs,
and at the end of the day, it’s all about using the learnings and tools from self-care
practices to balance dicult situations and inner peace. If time allows, this game
loop would open up more opportunities for recurring and emergent gameplay. It can
also provide players with a safe and reflective space to practice alongside Emma
and be inspired.
43
Chapter 6. Conclusion
As an ongoing project that started from the beginning of 2021 till now spring of
2022, Hedge Hug was developed while our society was still coping and recovering
from the global COVID-19 pandemic, with stressful incidents continuing to happen
around the globe. In these times, this project’s themes and messages are even
more crucial and highly relevant to the challenging and ever-evolving situations
that we all face together.
Those scary and depressing moments that Emma and many of us face are not easy
subjects to share, battle against, or heal from. The interactivity and symbolic
representations in Hegde Hug provide one of the ways to visualize those emotional
struggles and distortions, giving players a chance to learn, acknowledge, and
practice techniques that may later help them in real-life situations.
Hegde Hug has tons of room and potential to grow and improve. There are still
plenty of things to research which could enhance the gameplay and our portrait of
self-care and anxiety. But it’s lovely to see that our story and game were able to
inspire players to reflect upon di erent aspects of their life – mental health, taking
care, concerns about presenting themselves, true friendships, etc.
Taking care of ourselves is no simple task. We may easily forget to do so when we
are struggling or committed to providing for a family, growing to be independent,
realizing our creative visions, or chasing those exciting dreams. I hope Hedge Hug
can serve as a gentle reminder for us all to breathe, take care, stay true to our
beliefs, be kind and patient with ourselves, and enjoy.
44
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Hu, Mengqing "Claire"
(author)
Core Title
Hedge hug -- a narrative-driven interactive exploration on low self-esteem and social anxiety
School
School of Cinematic Arts
Degree
Master of Fine Arts
Degree Program
Interactive Media
Degree Conferral Date
2022-05
Publication Date
04/13/2022
Defense Date
04/13/2022
Publisher
University of Southern California
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Tag
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Tags
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