The Pool
Mia Zhu
Advisor: Theo Ellin Ballew
“The Pool” is a first-person narrative exploration game that transforms an indoor swimming facility into a memory landscape examining childhood growth, friendship, institutional control, and cultural expectations. Based on Mia’s experience in competitive swimming in China, the game uses environmental storytelling where players explore physical and emotional spaces through objects, journal entries, photos and videos that capture memory sensations.
Project Description
While many associate “pool” with carefree play, for Mia, it conjures a world shaped by discipline, pressure, and transformation—a place of heavy air, dim lights, and the persistent weight of training and social dynamics.
"The Pool" offers a personal yet universal look at childhood as a competitive swimmer. Exhaustion and repetition were daily routines for Mia, whose early years were consumed by intense Olympic training under the watch of a strict coach. Economic differences and the emphasis on achievement shaped the way Mia and her teammates understood and navigated the world at a very young age. Yet, within this intensity, friendship became a lifeline. Bonds formed amid hardship, providing support and shared moments of relief.
This first-person narrative exploration game translates those experiences into an immersive, interactive environment. Players explore three virtual spaces—a starting room, a locker room, and finally, the pool—each filled with 3D-scanned objects, photographs, videos, and fragments from Mia’s handwritten diaries and letters. Memories unfold through exploration, with the most significant entries placed near each entrance. By interacting with them, players can view enlarged letters, hear ambient water sounds, and listen to Mia’s voiceover translations and reflections.
Through a blend of text, objects, sound, and personal history, "The Pool" invites visitors to experience Mia’s world as a young swimmer in China. Through her personal narrative, Mia reflects on how these individual experiences are shaped by, and reflect, the broader cultural values of her society.
Technical Details
Unreal Engine 5(environment, gaming mechanics), Polycam(photogrammetry), Epson V850 (the scanner used for scanning letters and journals)
Research/Context
This project draws inspiration from the narrative exploration games Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch. Both games demonstrate how everyday environments and personal artifacts can be used to construct deeply emotional and layered narratives.
Another important reference for this project is Leanne Shapton’s memoir, Swimming Studies. In her book, Shapton looks back on her experiences as a competitive swimmer in Canada, describing not only the physical challenges of training but also the complex emotions that come with it. Reading her reflections, I was impressed by how similar these experiences feel, even across different cultures. The physical sensations, routines, and emotional struggles she describes are things I recognize from my own background. This realization shapes my approach to this project: by inviting players to piece together memories, I hope to show how individual stories can connect to a larger, shared experience, no matter where we come from.