Yanshuo Liu

My showcase work is the narrative puzzle game One More Time, a digital media art creation exploring post-traumatic psychological experiences.

This piece centers on trauma and persistent inner fixation. The protagonist returns to her ancestral home and is repeatedly pulled into flashbacks to the swing set where her younger brother had an accident. She attempts countless times to alter the tragic outcome, yet every attempt ends in failure, weighed down by lingering self-blame. By uncovering hidden memories and truths scattered across the old house, she gradually re-examines her warped perceptions of the incident.

Inspired by concepts from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the game employs cyclic looping narrative and environmental puzzle exploration to visualize intrusive flashbacks and repetitive rumination, core psychological symptoms experienced by people living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Through interactive gameplay, the work invites players to step into the protagonist’s tangled inner world and gain empathetic insight into the self-blame and cognitive distortion brought by unresolved trauma.