concept + brief

The Archive is an interactive experience that dives into how memories are tied to physical objects. Imagine an old DVD—it’s just like reality, but with a sense of digital "rot" and distortion that comes from sitting in storage over time. This distortion reflects how our brains sometimes alter or blur memories, especially when we document our lives through tapes, DVDs, or other physical media.

tech + specs

The project was built in Figma with a keypad controller prototype, originally designed to be played with a TV remote hooked to a Makey Makey. There’s also an online version you can play on my portfolio site using your arrow keys.

Initially, I wanted to program it as a full game using Processing software, but due to time constraints, I had to stick with Figma— and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

For our final Experience Design project, we were tasked with creating a nonlinear narrative experience to be interacted with by a user, with the goal in mind for them to learn something about us as the creator.

I began thinking of ways to express myself in a manner that was both conceptually interesting and accessible to an audience, as the way I process information and memories is already nonlinear, but not neccessarily accessible to most.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of “digital decay” and how natural processes transcend into the digital world.

This project is meant to help me better understand my own memories, while also showing how storing data on physical media affects how we view those memories. It’s not just the data on the disc, but the memories of the person behind it that matter.

using physical media
to recover my memories

I had the idea of placing a physical tape into a VCR to “replay” my memories and regain what I had lost. So much of my life is catalogued in digital code, through saved posts and screenshots, while only a handful of pictures are physical.

If the internet were to be deleted in it’s entirety, my years of high school on Snapchat memores and Instagram would be gone. All I would have are the DVDs from my childhood and various analog media to hold my memories, as well as any special objects I found memorable. And so, I had the idea for an experience.

Much of this project’s more intricate details and ways of working are owed to the escape room-style horror game Amanda the Adventurer, in which you play a series of VHS tapes to solve puzzles that directly affect the tape’s narrative in real time.

This was hands-down the toughest project to plan and execute. Even with almost a whole semester, I struggled to come up with interactive elements that were both meaningful to me and communicated a message to the audience.

gathering assets

This project is my most personal work to date, using real objects and environments from my own life to help me process and understand past experiences. The format is inspired by point-and-click games with deep narratives, which have always influenced my work.