"Could have finished it."

An interactive experience of procrastination

“Could have finished it” is a video game/interactive experience about procrastination. Through this video game, players can get to know the inside of a procrastinator. Procrastinators are not simply lazy; they’re actually struggling when they procrastinate.

Abstract

“Could have finished it” is a story about procrastination. Through this video game/interactive experience, players can get to know the inside of a procrastinator. While procrastination is a common phenomenon, many procrastinators don’t seem to really understand how procrastination works. In other words, they are aware that they’re procrastinating, but they don’t know what cause them to procrastinate and how not to procrastinate next time. On the other hand, people who don’t procrastinate might mistakenly think that procrastinators are simply lazy or afraid of failing. Therefore, by going through an interactive experience of procrastination, both procrastinators and non-procrastinators can have a better understanding on this subject.

This project consists of a video game made in Unity 2D. It follows a linear storytelling, and the interface of the game mimics that of a computer desktop. Research points out that procrastinators may lack communication and support from people around them, therefore it’s reasonable to assume a procrastinator spending time on computer and the internet the entire day. The player roleplays the in-game character who has been procrastinating on the final project for a class until the last week before deadline. In each day of this final week, the player has several things to do to get through the day, such as trying to work on the final project, browsing social media, and playing video games. However, as days go by, the player will find out that the in-game character is not progressing on the final project, instead, most of the time is spent on games and social media. The in-game character got so anxious in the end that they didn’t dare to read unread messages from their professor. The ending was not good for the in-game character.

Some might argue that that the nature of procrastination contradicts with video game, that no player procrastinates on quests or tasks when playing video games. While that is not wrong, this game I made doesn’t induce players to procrastinate. It is more like a story, hence why I call it an interactive experience.

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