Embodiment for the Difference: A VR Experience of Bipolar Disorder

The objective of this project is to simulate the symptoms of bipolar disorder through a virtual reality application. We aim to provide an experience of how people live with bipolar disorder, which is characterized by drastic mood changes, during their daily lives. For our bipolar disorder simulation, we narrowed down the emotions to two stages—a manic or overjoyed state and a depressive state. Various factors—such as gameplay speed, interactions of varied difficulty, and computer graphics and sound effects—are employed during the simulation to dictate the emotion experienced by the user.