Austin Wolfe, PhD student at SimVis won the 2022 Yugo BAFTA Student Award for Best Immersive Project

The award was announced at a ceremony at Harmony Gold in Los Angeles on Friday July 22nd, 2022. The award was collected on behalf of Austin by Scottish voiceover actress and broadcaster Fiona McNeill (herself a graduate of our MDes Sound for Moving Image programme).

This engaging and emotional immersive VR story’s outcome is not affected by the player, although the manner in which the plot is experienced changes based their interactions. The story is based on Scottish folklore, featuring a lighthouse keeper and a selkie (shapeshifting seal). They fall in love, but eventually she has to return to the sea. Finally, the keeper invites the player to sit beside him, representing a reconnection of the feelings he once ignored.