#gAME DESIGN
#WEB DEVELOPMENT
#iNTERACTIVE ARTS
Graduation is an interactive web game I made with Wix and Spline for my New Media Storytelling course during my final year at Lingnan University. Inspired by my personal anxiety during the time of graduation and career choice.
This personal struggle became the core inspiration for the game: an interactive 3D web experience where players explore the emotional realities, choices, and resilience required of fresh graduates today.
The game starts with giving the player control over opening the graduation certificate, participating the graduation picture taking, making the achievement feel personal.
This is inspired by the brief window of euphoria I felt I would have upon finishing my animation degree at Lingnan University. Overshadowed by the heavy question: "What comes next?"
After the joy of accomplishment, I force players into a realistic decision matrix, where they have to pick the job that will decide the rest of their lives.
To create authenticity of the struggle, I didn't want "absolute good" vs. "absolute bad" choices, but rather choices that highlight compromise, entry-level gatekeeping, and practical survival.
Then the player enters the interview stage of the job-seeking segment, where players must choose between truthful answers or fabricated responses to secure an offer.
The [Lie] vs. [Truth] mechanic tests how much of personal integrity and pride the player is willing to sacrafice for financial stability.
I created 6 distinct narrative endings. Prompts directly question the player’s choices. Hired or not, the ending encourages players to evaluate and self-reflect, whether their decision to lie or not was worth the cost.
The message I wish the players to know is that success isn't just about scoring a successful job, but about staying alive, adaptable, resilient, and honest about your own life choices.
Self-reflection
At first, "Graduation" was just a class assignment for me to vent my own struggles and concerns about entering the workforce, but through development, I realized empathy gives interactive media its true meaning.
I realized it's not just me having such a struggle. It is a current shared real-world anxiety influenced by the world we're living in. And this project allowed me to understand how design and storytelling can read the world's quiet worries and create experiences that make people feel understood.
This also became one of the reasons why I wanted to use my design to solve real life problems.
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