About this project:

Videogames make you better at navigating in real life. No need for maps!

Memory Master is a Unity prototype I developed during the Summer of 2011.

It started when I was contacted by a researcher from Aarhus University, Rasmus Aamand Olesen (Department of Biologiocal Sciences and Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience) who wanted to do a scientific research about 3D game environments and their influence on the human brain’s spatial awareness and memory.

The premise of the game is simple: influenced by similar studies (Parallel striatal and hippocampal systems for landmarks and boundaries in spatial memory & Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network) it should allow the test person to navigate a open 3D space with various landmarks. His objective is to collect different objects (letters and numbers). After he has collected everything, he needs to go back and place the items at their appropriate place. The closer he places the items to their original position, the more points he gets.

Memory Master is a simple game utilizing the in-built terrain editor of Unity. The map is separated into two playing fields with three different sets of positions for the objects. The game records various data such as time spent collecting/placing the objects and how far the distance between objects’s original position and the new position are. After a game has been finished (ie. collecting either 10 or 20 objects and then place them at their right places), the game creates a text file with the necessary data as well as grabbing a screenshot that shows how good the test person was at remembering where he found the objects. The game is supposed to be hard, since the university researcher wanted to make a study over longer periods of time where he could see if different factors, such as the food the test person ate, had an influence.

The scientific research hasn’t been completed yet, but until then you can try the game here on my portfolio (the web version doesn’t record any data).

None of the 3D models were made by me, but downloaded through the Unity Asset Store. The letters and numbers were made by Kyle_Katarn from 3DBuzz.com.