I will revise my first Project Idea into y final project. While I wanted to do social commentary, and I still could, everyone agreed it should be more on physical change in the game. As the player talks to people, they would give descriptions and give insights to what the world looks like. The more people you talk to the more visible the world becomes. I would want it to be a visible change, like it happens after you speak, and you see it change. I can make models in Maya, and I can use Unity to make and test the beta, though I would need to know more programming and how to make dialogue and models for which order the player decides to talk to NPCs. Still a work in progress.
I think the god-view idea you explained in class the other day is probably too complicated and ambitious. I like where we’ve arrived with your original idea. The user wanders around non-descript city blocks, and as she has conversations with NPCs, the geometry and textures of the city start to fill in response to their exchange. Ideally the conversations and the the resulting changes in the environment would not be arbitrary, but maybe reflective of some foundational ideas in philosophy. But if and when the changes are arbitrary, well… life can be arbitrary. And those changes might serve as a red herring to intrigue the user.
Likely areas of research… what technical tools will allow you to execute your vision? What should the conversations be about? Might they refer to philosophy? Psychology? Previous literature?