Immersive game

August - December 2025

Ghosts of the Deep is a project made in response to a specific type of ocean pollution, ghost nets. Ghost nets are fishing nets that are abandoned or discarded by fishermen and left in the ocean ecosystem. Ghost nets choke out coral reefs, impact fish feeding grounds, and trap fish. The player’s goal is to navigate the environment to find shoals of krill to feed themselves as a seahorse constantly. If the player starves from hunger, the experience ends. The game is projected on a large screen with surround audio to immerse players within the underwater environment.

Using an Xbox One Kinect, the project tracks the player's body movements to control the seahorse character in the game, allowing players to become physically immersed in the struggles of a seahorse. As they traverse the undersea coral reef environment, players will find it further impacted by the harmful effects of ghost nets and must travel even further to find food. Players will encounter particular ghost nets in the environment that they must struggle through to progress in the game.

Along with the 3D environment, the soundscape plays healthy coral reef sounds that play less often and more quietly as players progress through the game. The game also uses realistic sounds to communicate gameplay mechanics to players. Hunger is shown through a non-standard, slowly encroaching vignette on the game’s camera that grows as the seahorse is hungrier. We further immerse the player in the life of a seahorse by removing recognizable game UI.

Itch.io page:

https://bagofpaperclips.itch.io/ghosts-of-the-deep