Video games are often designed to be fun, escapist experiences, but they do not have to be. Discomfort design has become an exciting way to provoke greater self-reflection and appreciation of a game's narrative. Most literature on discomfort design is limited to case studies of art, so Under Watch’s goal is to create a controlled environment to test the impacts of uncomfortable or disturbing gameplay on player reflection and appreciation. To accomplish this, we created SnapGram, a fake social media app where players “hunt” each other, taking selfies with their targets. Over the course of the study, a narrative will be revealed, showing how social media companies like SnapGram can abuse user data. Fake advertisements will become increasingly malicious, eventually using selfies to train A.I. “deepfakes” of players, creating ads featuring fake versions of real users. Through interviews and usage metrics, we will collect first-hand quantitative and qualitative data, a rarity in the field of discomfort design. By telling a story with a lesson and utilizing uncomfortable design, we hope to demonstrate gaming as a reflective art medium, and discomfort design as an effective tool to prompt player enjoyment, engagement and reflection.
