Roommate
Role: Director, Cinematography, Animator,
Unreal engine developer
Roommate is a VR storytelling and gameplay experience that explores the complex realities of eating disorders.
Where control meets comfort, a struggle unfolds.
Eating disorders can be shaped by many factors such as genetics, pressure about body image, past trauma, or stress from work or school. At the core there is often a strong need for control, pushing yourself toward perfection until it becomes harmful both physically and mentally, and leaving you craving comfort.
That comfort often comes through food. It can help you cope in the moment, but it can also tip into a loss of control, followed by guilt and self-blame, and then a swing back into extreme self-control. This back-and-forth creates a cycle that is hard to break.
Base on these, I created Roommate, Roommate is a VR storytelling and gameplay experience that turns these two extremes, control and comfort, into characters sharing the same room. Their interactions give players a window into what it is like to live inside this cycle and the ongoing effort to find balance between them.
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1. The story begins outside an abstract house, which also represents the main character Jade’s inner world.
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2. Inside, three dark shadows move: Jade and her two “roommates,” Rex and Bo. You slowly enter the house, immersing yourself in their story.
3 & 4. In the black and white narrative section, you observe their daily interactions and conversations from a third-person perspective, experiencing their struggles and attempts to find balance.
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5. Clues and hints are scattered throughout the environment, such as a paper note, that will resurface later in the gameplay.
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6 & 7. At night, Jade reaches her breaking point. Bo takes her to the basement, and the perspective shifts to first person.
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8 & 9 & 10 & 11 & 12. Now you become Jade, exploring the basement to uncover the truth. Items that appeared during the day are highlighted as clues, guiding you through the gameplay.
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12. As you piece together the events, you discover that the chaos in the basement is caused by Jade herself, not Bo. Rex and Bo are revealed to be manifestations of Jade’s two extreme personality states, both existing within her.
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13. The climax arrives when Rex intervenes to stop Jade, and her mother unexpectedly appears.
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14 & 15. In the ending, the scene returns to the black and white living room, where Jade rejects her mother’s help and slips back into the cycle of her daytime routine.
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Jade — Protagonist navigating between control and comfort.
Rex (Control) — Embodiment of extreme self control; organized, watchful, rule bound.
Bo (Comfort) — Embodiment of extreme self indulgence; impulsive, carefree, boundary pushing.
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The story unfolds across two distinct spaces: the living room and the basement, each with its own color palette and atmosphere. The living room is clean and orderly, reflecting control and driven by Rex. The basement is chaotic and disordered, representing indulgence and led by Bo.
I spent two months completing this project, using Unreal Engine 5 for VR and interactive gameplay, along with Maya and Cinema 4D for 3D modeling and animation. I explored different visual styles to find the one most suited to the project, while also developing time efficient and effective methods to achieve the desired game functionality.
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