The heavy chime of a clock wakes you in a vaguely familiar living room. Scattered keepsakes on tables drop hints at the people who have passed through here, but you can’t quite piece them together. The photos hanging on the walls capture smiling faces you don’t wholly recognize, even if one of them is yours.

This is the opening scene of Forget-Me-Knot, a new video game that puts its players in the shoes of someone battling Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Alexander Tarvet, a student in Abertay University’s Game Design & Production Management program in Dundee, Scotland, aims to use the game to raise awareness of the brain disease, in which a person’s memory, thinking and problem-solving skills progressively worsen over time.

“Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating condition for everyone affected and their loved ones, and through playing Forget-Me-Knot the player gets an immediate sense of the confusion the character feels,” Tarvet said in a press release.

Tarvet added that while the living room is supposed to be a comforting space, the game portrays it as incredibly unsettling. The player needs to navigate the emotionally foggy terrain, sifting through clues found on shelves and in drawers to understand where — and who — he is.

“Putting yourself into the shoes of the person with the disease gives a very immediate, visceral sense of how disorientating and terrifying it must be to live with long-term memory loss,” he said.

Tarvet is among 170 students who presented their final projects over the weekend at Abertay’s Digital Graduate Show, part of the Ignite Dundee festival running from May 8-31.

While many of the show’s projects appear exciting, Tarvet’s work stands out for its social consciousness, highlighting a disease that affects millions across the globe.

An estimated 44.4 million people have dementia worldwide, and that number is expected to increase to 75.6 million by 2030. Someone in the U.S. develops Alzheimer’s every 67 seconds, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, while approximately 850,000 people will live with dementia in the UK by the end of 2015.

Honours Projects finally submitted!

A photo posted by Alexander Tarvet (@thesandoid93) on Apr 27, 2015 at 6:49am PDT

Although still in early production stages, Forget-Me-Knot joins a number of video games that shine a light on important health and social issues, and the emotional impact that accompanies them. Notable titles include Elude, which is a metaphorical portrayal of depression, and That Dragon Cancer, which illustrates the life of a parent of a young child with cancer. A short web game called Alz, developed in 2014, also explores how everyday details fade with Alzheimer’s disease.

Considering Forget-Me-Knot is 21-year-old Tarvet’s final honors project for his degree, it’s unclear whether the game will be released to the wider public. Mashable has reached out to him about his goals for the project, and will update this post when we hear back.

[H/T Engadget]

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