Digital Traces
HTW Berlin, Game Design B.A.
08/2020 to 06/2021
Bachelor thesis
Developed with Unity3D
For my bachelor thesis, I developed a concept for a game and implemented it in Unity. I primarily focused on system design, narration and the technical implementation. In the game, the player gains access to the personal “digital space” of a fictional, unknown
person. The focus then lies on exploration and puzzle solving: not all parts of the game are accessible to the player from the beginning, and to reveal the entire story, they must find and solve various hidden puzzles throughout the game. The puzzle design and linear storyline combined with the countdown make the game feel like a “digital escape room”.
The player assumes the role of a hacker that gets contacted by a cybersecurity corporation called “EctoSecurity” to locate dangerous files
on a private computer and then send them to the corporation.
After this introduction, the game starts on the desktop of “Dana Williams”, where the player can rummage through her digital life - for
example by chatting with her friends on her social media or finding out her email account password to read her mails.
Eventually, the security system of the computer, designed to protect the files the player is looking for, finds out that an intruder is operating the system and triggers the formatting of the harddrive. A countdown starts, and from this point on, the player has only 20 minutes left to complete the mission.
Every now and then, an employee from EctoSecurity contacts and helps the player from the outside. The content of the files are unknown until the very end and only get revealed to the player if
they win.
