Mathias
Lerche Jaqué

About the project

A single-player adventure game: you pilot a diving vessel across a dark ocean floor, find and service drill stations and solve puzzles while the threat level rises. We took it from paper prototype to a playable Unity build, with playtests shaping the balance, accessibility and narrative.

my Responsibilities

• All sound implementation in Wwise, and  sound design.
• Sound vision: every sound should feel like it's heard through real water, reinforcing the visuals.
• Built an underwater microphone from a piezo element and recorded sound effects through water in a tank.

What I learned

• How to plan and carry a shared vision for a game all the way through production.
• Prototype on paper before going digital — it is far cheaper to find problems there.
• Game design is iterative at heart: most pain can be avoided by getting players involved as early as possible.

About the project

A Unity vertical slice: you run around collecting objects while six flocks of birds roam overhead. If a flock spots you, its leader dives in with a deadly firebolt — unless you run to cover first.

• Individual project — design and implementation of AI mechanics.
• Flocking with boids (separation, alignment, cohesion), each flock following a "Masterbird" leader, plus obstacle avoidance against terrain and cover.
• Unity Behavior Graph driving the leader through idle, roam, seek and dive.
• Line-of-sight perception with raycasts, so taking cover actually protects you.

What I learned

• AI programming: Neural networks, machine learning, deep learning, optimization, logic and data science. 

About the project

A qualitative, exploratory study with four Danish participants aged 33–67. Interviews and card sorting revealed five barriers: privacy scepticism (ranked most important by everyone), complexity, distrust in big tech, relevance in context, and Home Assistant as an alternative. Imagining AI-guided setup raised perceived ease of use (+6.8%) but lowered perceived usefulness (−2.4%) — AI alone can't fix a trust problem.

• Individual project — research design, interviews, card sorting and analysis.
• Semi-structured interviews and two rounds of card sorting.
• Thematic analysis framed by the Technology Acceptance Model and Diffusion of Innovation.
• Concluded that local, offline-capable platforms with transparent data practices matter more than smarter technology.

What I learned

• Running a qualitative study end to end on my own — and how easily a lone researcher's expectations can steer follow-up questions.
• Small convenience samples give insight, not general truths.
• Trust vs features — people's barrier was privacy, not missing technology.

About the project

We turned a short film into a VR experience — instead of watching the story on a screen, you step inside its dreamlike, fog-filled scenes. It was an extension of the film rather than a direct translation. We wanted to research how using VR could help raising immersion. 

Built in Unity together with the film's director, using environmental storytelling, spatial audio and cinematic lighting. An A/B study (VR vs. watching the film) with interviews and the Igroup Presence Questionnaire found no significant gain in how accurately people read the director's intent — but a clear shift in engagement: VR participants told the story from an embodied, first-person view, while viewers stayed observers.

MY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Sound design and sound geometrics implementation via FMOD and meta XR sound kit to achieve realistic spatial sound utilising general HRTF's.

What I learned

• Sound perception and cognition, how sound are physically perceived in humans and how to use models to replicate it. 
• Sound implementation using FMOD and Unity. 
• Foley recording a anachoic chamber to be able to correctly use HRTF's (Head Related Tranfer Functions)

About the project

A framework that links sensors on ESP32 boards to PureData for sound and TouchDesigner for visuals — ESP-NOW between the boards, OSC to the computer. Two use cases ("The ball" And "The Box") functioned as input devices. Artists evaluated it in interviews.

MY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Sensor design and assembly + code.
• Interview of test participant

What I learned

• People judge the demo, not the tool — the artists responded to our use cases rather than the framework, so testers need hands-on time with the actual toolkit.
• There's a gap between "it works" and "artists can use it": enclosures, ready-made sensors and a GUI matter as much as the core system.
• Wireless latency is a real design constraint when sound has to react to people live.