The Game and Exhibition
GAIA is an interactive game set in a speculative scenario where players awaken into an unfamiliar system shaped by conflicting narratives, promises of safety, and urgent calls to act. From the outset, the experience is designed to feel disorienting: information is fragmented, perspectives clash, and clarity is deliberately withheld.
As the game progresses, players are increasingly pressured to take a definitive stance; aligning with one side while rejecting another. Neutrality and hesitation are subtly reframed as threats, transforming indecision into risk. At its core, GAIA explores how complex realities are reduced into simplified, binary choices, often without access to the full context behind them.
Through its mechanics and visual language, the project highlights how emotional triggers such as fear, belonging, and moral urgency are used to enforce loyalty. It reflects on how both human systems and technologically mediated environments can produce similar patterns of influence and control.
The project was developed as part of Mirror Machines 3, a collaborative exhibition by Hochschule Heilbronn (HHN) and Hochschule Pforzheim in the winter semester 2025/26. The exhibition brought together students from computer science and design students to explore one of today’s most pressing topics: the evolving relationship between humans and artificial intelligence.
My Role - Game Art, Asset & Character Design
For GAIA, I was responsible for the visual development of the game, including the creation of key assets, character design, and the overall visual language that supports the narrative.
I designed the characters as intentionally ambiguous figures, focusing on expression, silhouette, and visual inconsistency to reflect the instability of the system they exist in. Rather than portraying clear identities, the designs emphasize uncertainty and shifting interpretation, reinforcing the game’s themes of pressure, alignment, and manipulated perception.
