Practical Time Travel: The Ridges is an immersive user agency-centered experience providing facts about the history of the Athens State Hospital; some of the people who worked and lived there; the architecture; and industries related to the site. Through virtual reality, participants can learn historic facts, about motivations of those that lived in the past, and how multiple elements of life and culture are connected through activities involving trial and error, exploration, and puzzle-solving.
In its current state, it is a prototype of a start of a larger piece that involves a fictional A.I. character that gains humanity as it provides facts to the explorer.
It currently uses teleportation and joystick rotation, but future versions will most likely have smooth movement that takes you linearly through the space like a screen-based game.
I published the project here: https://hopeliz.itch.io/practical-time-travel-the-ridges
Practical Time Travel is a series of experimental interactive projects that send participants "back in time" to experience history using current technology.