DENIAL
EMOTIONS
The first stage of grief according to the Kubler-Ross model is Denial, where you may feel any of the following emotions; Avoidance, Confusion, Elation, Shock or Fear. Each of these can be an avenue to look down when researching alternative feelings to inspire the direction for the art to go in.
Denial is the stage that can initially help you survive the loss. You might think life makes no sense, has no meaning, and is too overwhelming. You start to deny the news and, in effect, go numb.
It's common in this stage to wonder how life will go on in this different state - you are in a state of shock because life as you once knew it has changed in an instant. If you were diagnosed with a deadly disease, you might believe the news is incorrect - a mistake must have occurred somewhere in the lab; they mixed up your bloodwork with someone else's. If you receive news of the death of a loved one, perhaps you cling to a false hope that they identified the wrong person. In the denial stage, you are not living in "actual reality", rather, you are living in a "preferable" reality.
Interestingly, it is denial and shock that help you cope and survive the grief event. Denial aids in pacing your feelings of grief. Instead of becoming completely overwhelmed with grief, we deny it, do not accept it, and stagger its full impact on us. Think of it as your body's natural defense mechanism, saying "Hey, there's only so much I can handle at once."
Once the denial and shock start to fade, the healing process begins. At this point, those feelings that you were once suppressing are coming to the surface.
Understanding the emotional pathway that can be undertaken by those in this stage allows for a wider range of ideas and themes that can be utilized during the design process. A common exercise with editorial illustrations is to take keywords from a piece of writing and create a list of synonyms for them with which an abstract new series of words can be produced that can lead toward an idea for an image that holds some semblance towards the original piece of writing but through serendipitous means can also lead to a secondary effect such as comedic or horrifying to exaggerate the ideas within the writing, this can also be utilized here to open up the themes to more ideas that can lead to successful creations.
Strongest synonym
Strong synonym
Weak synonym
AVOIDANCE
Evasion, Prevention, restraint.
Circumvention, Delay, Departure, Dodge, Dodging, Elusion, Escape, Escapism, Flight, Forebearance, Nonparticipation, Parry, Recession, Recoil, Retreat, Self-restraint, Shirking, Shunning.
Absention, Eschewal, Passive resistance, Runaround, Steering clear of.
CONFUSION
Bewilderment, Disorientation, Distraction, Embarrassment, Turbulence, Turmoil.
Abashment, Agitation, Befuddlement, Bemusement, Chagrin, Commotion, Demoralization, Dither, Flap, Fluster, Lather, Perplexity, Perturbation, Pother, Puzzlement, Stew, Tumult.
Abashing, Addling, Befuddling, Blurring, Cluttering, Confounding, Disarranging, Discomfiting, Disturbing, Dumbfounding, Embarrassing, Embroiling, Mixup mystification, Obscuring, Perplexing, Stirring up, Tangling, Unsettling, Upsetting.
ELATION
Bliss, Ecstasy, Enthusiasm, Euphoria, Excitement, Exhilaration, Glee, Joy, Jubilation, Rapture.
Buoyancy, Buzz, Charge, Delight, Exaltation, Exultation, High, Intoxication, Jollies, Joyfulness, Joyousness, Kick, Kicks, Transport, Triumph, Upper.
Cloud nine, High spirits, Stars in one's eyes, Up.
SHOCK
Awe, Bump, Collapse, Confusion, Consternation, Disturbance, Earthquake, Excitement, Impact, Injury, Jolt, Scare, Trauma.
Bombshell, Breakdown, Clash, Collision, Concussion, Crash, Distress, Encounter, Hysteria, Jarring, Percussion, Prostration, Ram, Start, Stroke, Stupefaction, Stupor, Turn, Upset, Whammy, Wreck.
Double whammy, Eye-opener, Traumatism.
FEAR
Alarm, Angst, Anxiety, Apprehension, Awe, Concern, Despair, Dismay, Doubt, Horror, Jitters, Panic, Scare, Suspicion, Terror, Unease, Uneasiness, Worry.
Abhorrence, Agitation, Apprehensiveness, Aversion, Consternation, Cowardice, Creeps, Discomposure, Disquietude, Distress, Faintheartedness, Fearfulness, Foreboding, Fright, Funk, Misgiving, Nightmare, Phobia, Presentiment, Qualm, Reverance, Revulsion, Timidity, Trembling, Trepidation.
Chickenheartedness, Cold feet, Cold sweat, Recreancy.
Now the idea is not to use all of these words, some don't pair well or worse contradict each other. But to find patterns or utility in the design process, both artistically and mechanically. For instance, utilizing the effect of disorientation within the environment and mechanics of a game can lead to anxiety or apprehension within the player as they may feel turned around or that they haven't made progress as they have doubled back on themselves, they may fear moving forward again. Likewise creating an earthquake or disturbance mechanically could lead to bewilderment or evasion to certain areas by the player feeling like progressing a certain way has led to these events. Artistically certain colours, textures, tones, shapes, or mediums could evoke these feelings and emotions and is something to bear in mind and experiment with going forward with both character and environmental art. Studies have shown how certain colours can evoke particular emotions as art therapy among schizophrenics observed red and black colours used more often than others as well as blue has often been seen as a calming colour. Textures and mediums, however, can depend on the target audience as a multitude of different mediums have been used in past examples to evoke the same feelings but the success of this can be subjective based on the audience observing it.
MOOD BOARDING
Another exercise to find unique ways to evoke the emotion of denial is looking at other creative disciplines that attempt to successfully cause or display the same emotions and transcribe them into gameplay, crafting a mood board of ideas and taking bits and pieces from each one and blending them together seamlessly with both the mechanics and art of a game.
Searching for "Denial in art" led to a number of results but one that stood out initially to me was this piece due to the research for the process being evident alongside the final piece, showing how both the emotions and theme of death were present in the mind of the creative during the decision-making process, something I am seeking to emulate with the five stages of grief often linked to the loss of a loved one (though not exclusively the case as it may be the loss of something too). It's insightful to see how the artist used symbolism in the piece through the use of moths in the image which I can also draw upon in my creative process, though was initially unsure of as a method as sometimes it can display the theme or message too overtly and hinder the effect you're looking for in a pro-social game. I believe if used effectively this may not be the case and can in fact be something the player can draw a link to after finishing the game and having a second play-through, like when you rewatch a film and find hidden easter eggs. An idea this image gave me is to have the the first area of the game lit up by a light source that moths flock to dimming and obscuring the level and the second player would have to use their abilities to affect the environment to shake the light sources to scatter the moths for a moment lighting up the area again. This would combine the use of it being a two-player game (the main player controls the player and the second player controls the environment) with words from the synonym research such as "disturbance" in terms of what the shaking of the light source would do, "fear" or "phobia" of the encroaching darkness which could cause "anxiety" or "apprehensiveness".
Closed eyes, blindfolded eyes, and figures turning away are often used in art attempting to depict "denial" and whilst I cannot envision this being used in the character art of the player character - due to it conflicting with the light obscuring mechanic previously mentioned I could enforce mechanics that make the player turn away during gameplay causing disorientation but the idea of the game is to progress along the journey of grief to reach acceptance. If this example is paired with sculptures such as those of Michaelangelo or Auguste Rodin where their figures convey emotions perfectly then statues could be implemented within the environment of blindfolded figures or have them turned away/eyes closed in some way perhaps this too could convey the idea.
With the composition of said statues within the background of the environment rather than an interactive component they can hold a much more covert aesthetic choice within the design of the game and hopefully not prevent the player from the positive benefits of playing a game that aims to help them through the journey of grief.
COLOUR
Looking at one of the creative aspects previously mentioned with which there have been the most studies of its effects on emotions as well as the impact feelings can have on the way we observe colour whether we accept or reject known conventions.
After looking into colours representing or symbolizing denial (not an emotion often associated with colours or one colour in particular) the above response was found on a Reddit forum. and it makes sense if we look at the description of feelings associated with denial. The idea of going numb as a protection method for me links to the senses since the sense of touch can be associated with numbness so it goes without saying that other senses may be numbed too such as sight where colours may be numbed or desaturated, if fully desaturated would lead to greyscale vision or grey as a colour for denial.
One of the games mentioned in a previous post that deals with grief/death that utilizes the effects and symbolism of colour with the theme is 'Gris'.
Gris is a game in which the player takes control of a young femal coming to terms with the loss of her mother and utilises a musical score as well as a watercolour medium to create a meditative and calming enviroment with which the player journeys through as the character passses trhough representative lands for each theme of the 5 stages of grief. Colours are used to illustrate the differences in each of the stages (red for anger, green for bargaining, blue for depression and yellow for acceptance) as well as mechanics or abilities the character gains as they pass through each stage; from being able to turn into a block and smash things in the anger stage to swimming through the waters in the depression stage. It all comes together harmoniously to represent the feelings the player may have at each stage, what sticks out to me visually is the use of watercolour or the simulation of throughout the visuals of the game. From use in the animated cut scenes to the drops of colour dropping onto the scene as you enter into a new area like teardrops falling onto a canvas and slowly drying and desaturating the colour as new more saturated drops fall down. Watercolour has often conveyed the idea of sadness in art and is no different here, yet the use of the drops like tears is unique and stands out as such, with the colours used being bright and often primary colours leads to the assumption of its inteded audience being young yet with them being subdued by desaturating demonstrates the artists knowledge of the subject matter and how delicately it must be handled, just like watercolours. How do other games that attempt to deal with grief look at the denial stage.
GAMES
Looking back at the list of games mentioned in previous posts and how they chose to represent denial as a stage or theme with grief or death through artistic choices or mechanics to understand whats being done before successfully or not and how to craft unique ways to successfully achieve my own goals.
- What remains of Edith Finch
What Remains of Edith Finch is a short 2 hour experience of a series of tales centered around the mysterious Finch family. The game tackles the theme of sadness and loss, by showing us that each individual has a story to tell and are not defined by the curse that caused them to pass away, it's story asks players to think about the messy nature of death and how grief has a habit of staying with us long after someone has passed. To tie this game into the stage of denial the use of unique mediums and perspectives during the sources of each family members life and death retelling confuses the authenticity of them possibly leading to a denial of the truth, or perhaps when the titular Edith starts to believe she has left the curse behind. Because it is a narrative focused adventure game the exposition delivers a lot of what we the player should be thinking and feeling which can drive the player from identifying themselves within the game or its message, it also leaves no room for mechanics within the game to represent feelings or themes to do with grief and as already mentioned most of the artistic choices were made to represent each characters story rather than different stages of grief or the emotions related to it. Not necessarily relaying to a particular stage of grief but the game has a significantly dark tone of colour present throughout all the sections where you travel through the 'real' world, starting in a dark and foreboding forest with a lot of heavy shadows and grey overcast skies. A decision some of these games make is a distinct lack of light, particurlarly sunshine.
- Gris
As previously mentioned art choices and mechanics are heavily relied on to display themes around the 5 stages of grief. Within the start of the game (mainly colourless after the first cutscene where the protagonist looses her ability to sing, something that brought her joy) we can move in the opposite of the intended direction to find a large statue of the player characters mother covering her eyes, so by avoiding where we should go on this journey of grief we are in denial as a player and then also see imagery representative of this emotion. We start moving slowly in this section, much slower than our later normal speed as well as collapsing to the ground if we try to jump or sing just more mechanical choices to further hammer home how numb and in shock the character is.
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
The emotional journey of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons has the unique gameplay of controlling each brother independently to solve puzzles collaboratively in order to progress the story. The two brothers seek support for their father who has fallen ill, and discover a touching tale along the way. Having already lost their mother before the start of the game and now having to journey to find 'the water of life' to save their father it could be easy to have the boys encounter characters or places along the way that represent grief to help them come to terms with the loss of their father when they return but the game sees that as to obvious and instead has an unexpected twist in the latter half of the game. Without spoiling things the event causes the controls of the game to completely change and have you witness the character Naiee express their own grief effectively which can draw parallels with the player if they've experienced anything similar. There is certainly two camps these sorts of games can sit in, either for those currently dealing with grief and to aid them on their journey or those who have experienced it and its a therapeutic reminder of what they overcame. There are emotions related to the 5 stages of grief caused by the games whimsical, joyful moments becoming more interspersed with unsettling and mounful imagery causing apprehension in the player or suspicion towards later characters when they act in certain ways.
- Zelda: Majora's Mask
There is a theory that this installment of the Zelda franchise is representative of the Kubler-Ross model of grief with either Link himself dying at the beginning of the game (falling down the giant tree trunk at the beginning would be the cause) or he's lost either his own childhood during the previous game 'Ocarina' or lost Navi who is never present in this game after leaving in 'Ocarina'. Each of the 5 Towns Link visits and helps have main characters who represent the 5 stages and he even visits them in the same order as the Kubler-Ross model, starting in Clock Town where the residents and carpenters all stubbornly stay in Clock Town despite their impending doom at the hands of a giant moon/asteroid about to collide with the town with characters openly denouncing the apocalypse while throwing a carnival of time. There are also several characters who snub Link and he is refused entry to several areas - a way of people turning away from him and his assistance as a representation of Denial. The artistic tone of the game is significantly darker than previous iterations as well to illustrate the darker theme that is possibly at play here.
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| Zelda: Majora's Mask |
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| Zelda: Ocarina of Time |
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| Zelda: The Wind Waker |
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| Zelda: Breath of the Wild |
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| Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom |
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| Zelda: Skyward Sword |
Looking over the game case and advertising poster art for many of the franchises titles Majora's Mask clearly stands out in terms of it's tone of colour with it being the only one with the sky displaying night time (the dusk of life perhaps) as well as more foreboding colour pallette in use with dark blues, purples and deep reds as opposed to the much brighter choices on other titles. This isn't to say the other games don't contain any death but it certainly isn't the major theme present, nor is the use of darker tones necessary as an artistic choice to depict this theme as clearly displayed in 'Gris', however, it is the second game in this list to seemingly have seperated the stages of grief into independent sections of the game and represent the depression section with water (Gris has an underwater section, Majora's Mask introduces to an amphibious species where it's raining) which is worth noting.
- Rime
RiME is an adventure-puzzle game which follows a boy exploring a mysterious island, guided by a fox-like spirit companion. After a storm destroys his and his father's boat, the boy discovers his father didn't make it. The game revolves around the boy's journey climbing the island's tower, with each area representing different stages of grief; reaching the top of the tower represents acceptance.
Another game that chooses not to use a darker tone to represent the darker tone of the message within the game, RiME has bright colours with a simplistic cell-shaded art style, the story and symbolism throughout the game is more important to the designers than the details of the art. Some of the levels have a stronger connection to the stages they are supposed to represent (an angry red bird creature chasing you throughout the second stage for example) but once you complete the game it is abundently clear that the games theme is dealing with loss and so going back through the game you can start to draw more nuanced parallels between each level and its representation of grief. I avoid attempting to manipulate my view of the puzzles in the game as methods for displaying the theme of loss or grief as by the end of the game I feel it's clear to see they are symbolic of the fathers struggles with coming to terms with the loss of his son (Keyhole puzzles are representing the fathers fear or refusal to unlock his sons room and accept his loss). and this unfortunately leads to the denial section being the hardest to find links to it's theme. However, looking back at the sort of emotions that I discussed in when looking at synonyms previously a lot of these can be present in the first section. With the protagonist awaking on a strange beach after being washed ashore after a storm, he is disorientated, this is an unknown land leaving him bewildered, confused, apprehensive and possibly fearful of whats happened. Similarly, the small animals in this area will often flee from the player character, a sense of denial in some aspects though not the strongest connection. I think the most nuanced detail in this section is the beauty of the place, visually the game is very pretty especially in this section with lush green grassy hills with bright white architecture, an idyllic land far from the storm ridden seas they came from which seems juxtaposed to the theme of death unless we look at this as the fathers "preferred reality" to avoid or deny the "actual reality" of his sons death. This idea of creating a "preferred reality" to protect us from the trauma of loss in the first stage of grief is something discussed previously and something I think, if correct, is a strong way of presenting the stages of grief as a theme very covertly. It's a connection a player can only really make once the game is completed, this is also what I believe to be an advisable way to dive in to a theme like death and grief without bashing it over the players head, starting of extremely covert with the theme and slowly increasing it as the player progresses, something that RiME sticks to throughout the game due to it being consistent with all its other details, such as beauty of its art encouraging players to explore and see it initially as just a puzzle-adventure game. The cut-scenes interspersed throughout the game add to this by only giving tiny snippets of what has previously happened adding curiosity to the player to carry on with the game to get the answers they seek to find the full story.
- That Dragon, Cancer
That Dragon, Cancer was developed as a love letter to Joel Green, the developer's son, and his experience with cancer. The game is deeply personal and encapsulates real audio and poetry within the gameplay. As with a number of these games, this is a heavy play; despite being intertwined with themes of hope and love. With it being both a narrative based game like 'What remains of Edith Finch' and a biographical account of one persons personal journey through grief, it isn't quite as accessible as other games on this list when attempting to observe any tropes with representing stages of grief through art and mechanics within the game. Everyone goes through grief in different ways and at different paces, however, with the theme of death and in particular cancer being so present and overt players know what they are getting themselves into. This isn't attempting to give players the tools to deal with their own grief in a discreet way but allowing them to observe another persons grief through a horrific period of time and find their own parallels. Players will not feel exactly the same as the protaganist at all times but there may be similarities found at certain points that allow the player to connect, by not attempting to perfectly represent the conventions around the stages of grief but to focus on one individuals unique journey it shows how complex grief as a process is relying on authentic emotions and feelings (encapsulated by the real recordings) to show that our understanding of the strange mix of emotions that can be felt to be true. This authenticity allows players to have a stronger connection with the game despite its overtedness by allowing them to reminisce on their own experiences and how they felt, when they may have been filled with confusion, turmoil and disorientation this game tells them these were natural feelings. Artistically to keep the message and theme of the game storng it resorts to simple polygon forms for the characters and enviroments, I've spoken in previous posts about the utility of simplifying art and characters to allow for more immersion from observers.
- Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer is described as a "cosy management game about dying", with the protagonist tasked with helping souls in the afterlife move on and process their past. As you nurture your passengers by fulfilling their requests, giving hugs, or feeding them their favourite meal - the player has a unique opportunity to work through the process of loss and grief in a way that is ultimately very comforting and rewarding. Spiritfarer does not treat grief as a simple five-step process. It doesn't try to show us what bereavement looks like through a progression that ends with a great acceptance that allows us to move on. Instead, it paints grief as a constant. It is not assumed what the player will feel, allowing the experience to be nuanced and reflective. Choosing not to have the 5 stages overt allows for the theme of death to be more overt keeping the goal of providing benefits to the player covert by having them control a protaganist helping others come to terms with their death so the player doesn't initially believe the game is aimed towards them, this use of a 'passenger' or a non player character as an 'assistant' is something I've documented previously as a way of hiding the goals of the game by having the player helping someone deal with the problem you hope they can help themselves with, by giving them the tools to do so they can then use them on themselves which has been found to have more success and be more beneficial to ones own morale and future occurances of the problem as they got to the solution themself without assitance, we as designers simply put the tools in their hands.
- The Last of Us
The last of Us parts 1 and 2 are not directly discussing the stages of grief and as such doesn't have the same sort of separation between stages as games like 'RiME', 'Gris' or 'Majora's Mask' however it is a rich storytelling experience within a linear action-puzzler where characters come across death and loss in a variety of ways and display a multitude of responses and reactions, playing as a character in this game gives you a very personal and intricate view into how they personally deal with the world that their thrust into which players may relate to. The biggest evidence for this is how the community reacted to the death of a main character at the beginning of the second game going as far as sending death threats to the voice actor of the character who commited these attrocities. Part 1 we pair with Joel and witness his transformation from a Father who having lost his daughter to gunfire during the start of the pandemic is tasked with travelling across country with a young girl who may contain the cure, slowly opening up as he progresses on his journey and finally starting to connect with other humans which lead to him refusing to let the girl die to cure the world as he cannot lose someone else after all the losses he has suffered so far. Part 2 has us in the role of the young girl, Ellie, who suffers her own loss when Joel is murdered in an act of revenge for his actions in the first game and we see how she is adamant on travelling down a path of revenge, juxtaposed with the same journey of the antagonist Abby who murdered Joel and got her revenge and seeing how this is not a successful solution to dealing with grief. Both stories remind me of the ideology of how heroes and villains are both the same having being faced with the same level of pain its just their reaction to said pain that dictates how they are viewed with the hero choosing to prevent anyone else from going through what they went through where the villain seeks to hurt the world back for causing them pain. We don't necessarily see visible differences in the characters as they progress along their own journey of grief, especially due to the twenty year time skip for Joel after his daughters passing, but there are certainly observable characteristics that players can relate to with characters dealing with loss. Joel starts the game very closed off, cold and violent. Denying others from getting close to him to protect himself from going through the same loss again, after losing his partner Tess he then moves to berate Ellie often only choocing to continue with the quest to fulfil Tess' dying wish. Moving forward he bargains with Bill to get the help and access to a vehicle to help push him forward to his goal of reaching his brother and potentially a group called the fireflies who can extract the cure from Ellie. Bill is another character who has experienced loss and has yet to move past the stage of being closed off going as far as to set up traps to prevent people getting close to him and it is here where Joel could see how he has moved forward in his journey. Along the way they meet brothers Henry and Sam and when one of them becomes infected and the other is forced to kill him they can't face there own loss and take their own life. A traumatic experience for both Joel and Ellie but brings them closer together through bonding on a shared experience. In a way the ending of the game Joel is choosing not to accept the loss of his daughter because he's found a way to be a father again and return to a "preferred reality" alongside his brother who has successfully processed their grief rather than facing the "actual reality" but the harsh truth is that not everybody can accomplish the goal of accepting loss. This is where Ellie differs in her journey, which initially feels like she won't process her grief either opting to take a path of revenge. It's the memories of Joel that stop her from carrying out the final act as she returns home having lost everything but gained peace by forgiving Joel for lying to her at the end of the first game about the fireflies not being able to use her for a cure. They both follow the 'Heroe's Journey' trope more than the 5 stages of grief but with the closeness the player is gifted to the character and the effort put into crafting realistic characters and authentic reactions to an apocalyptic world causes a significant connection between players and the characters and world in which they reside.
- Aka
Aka approaches the subject of grief in a hopeful way as you seek to repair the damage of the past, and focuses on relaxation and mindfulness through mechanics such as being able to just take a seat by the pond and watch the fish for a while. You can fully take your time with each aspect of the game, with no pressure to complete goals, no stamina or hunger: you only need to exist and live in the world it presents to you. Similar to 'Spiritfarer' this game has the protaganist help others come to terms with their death and remember them for the life they lived. Aka begins with almost no setup, plopping you on a deserted battlefield where the titular character has decided he has had enough of war and decides to leave for an island (possible denial stage link) to start a new life at the invitation of an old friend. This great war Aka is getting away from is central to the "story" if you can call it that, because the main questline involves finding and helping ghosts from Aka's time at the front. When you complete a ghost's quest, Aka remembers who they are, and you see a short cutscene that recounts how they died. The hand-drawn artwork for these scenes is lovely, but the stories are so barebones: the game spends so little time explaining the war, Aka's role in it, or these people so dear to him that it's incredibly difficult to feel any connection to the characters or the narrative.
- Last Day of June
Last Day of June is a touching representation of a person's psyche during the process of grief. After a tragic car accident take's June's life, her husband Carl is left alone and wheelchair-bound. Through June's paintings, Carl explores that fateful day time and time again from a variety of perspectives - from the kid next door to the village eccentric. Carl clings on to this otherworldly ability to change seemingly innocuous events that took place that ay, in order to try and change June's fate. Even this synopsis displays Carl's inability to accept what has happened and preferring to live in a reality where June still exists. This is representative of some of the thought processes we may go through as we process through the denial stage, often querying if we had done things differently could we change the outcomes, eventually accepting that no matter what we do events must come to pass. This is yet again another game with a beautiful and unique art style, I feel that a lot of these games even with simplistic art styles purposely try to evoke beauty to represent the idea of the beauty of life and it's absence in death but not it's complete removal as we can contain the memories of our lost ones/things. However, sometimes with such a focus on the story successfully translating it's messaes and themes to the player mechanics and puzzles etc can sometimes get left to the wayside especially if the art style is a secondary focus, when they too could be incorporated to deliver successful tools to the player to provide more benefit to them. Representation is all well and good in crafting a game that players can connect to but isn't to be the primary concern if you are aiming to alleviate players pain in there own loss or grief.
- The Unfinished Swan
The Unfinished Swan is a beautiful imagining of the grieving process. Monroe's mother recently passed away and she was notorious for not finishing paintings she had started. His favourite, the Unfinished Swan, escapes its canvas and leads him on a path of self-discovery and understanding. There is also a link between this game and the studios other game 'What remains of Edith Finch' as Edith's older brother who went missing presumed dead is actually the king in this game. To allow Monroe to overcome his own grief he progresses through the game by helping the King come to terms with their own loss, a "passenger" mechanic frequently used in pro-social games and already discussed several times by me, being quite meta in these cases as whilst the protaganist is gaining the tools to help them through grief by helping another so to is the player as they help Monroe. This is another game that relies on art and particularly hand drawn art styles though not for the majority of the graphics but it is incorporated through the mothers hobby and through mechanics within the painted world. I feel games using a more hand drawn art style have a subtle effect by understanding how sensitive the subject matter is and how fragile life can be linking to how traditional art methods can be compared to digital where it requires more sensitive mark making to achieve desired results causing the artist to become more connected to them and more fearful of loss or damage to the original pieces. It also adds a human touch to what is a digital media allowing for a nice connection between the player and designer that may not be as successful in a purely digital high detailed game.
- Welcome to Elk
Welcome to Elk presents a number of personal journeys that may be triggering to some players. Triple Topping handles each story with care and love and is done to educate players whilst doing justice to people's experiences. It has this way of drawing you in from the start with adventure, but wants to remind players to be aware of how hadr-hitting the stories can be. It demonstrates the extremes that grief, mental health, and more can go - but they're told in such a beautifully empathic and sympathetic way. It uses true stories and often a documentary-style retelling of incidents from people who passed them on to the team during production to give it more authenticity with it's message like 'That Dragon, Cancer' but having multiple stories of loss and grief displays how unique the journey can be for each individual, also having minimal colours used in the backgrounds allowing for the characters to stand out - they and their stories are whats important. All hand drawn linework with faded watercolour washes used for backgrounds is again attempting to create a soothing enviroment, there's no danger for the player or protaganist here, they are simply here to listen, help and understand these citizens and there histories and how it's shaped them into who they are today. Perhaps more aimed towards players gaining knowledge on how to assist those around them going through grief rather than the player themself.
TAKEAWAYS
- understand who the game is for so as to have a solid goal to aim the art and mechanics towards, are we representing grief so that others can relate, are we offering tools for a player to deal with their own grief or to assist others. I'm initially wanting to stick with the idea of a two player game where one helps the other so that when they're gone they will be able to come to terms with this loss in a much more therapeutic way. It's a unique gameplay style that doesn't seem to have been done before and provides a different way of a having a human to human connection without relying on real-life stories, and expands upon the "passenger" npc process that other games have used to success.
- experiment with art styles, a multitude of art styles as represented by the above games have shown that its how the art connects to the story being told and the intended target audience that dictate what would work best. I obviously have made my own observations and have preferences but it is certainly interesting that sticking to conventions isn't necessary. (light and dark colour tones have both been used as well as traditional and digital art as well as simple and complex or realistic styles).
- the overtness of the theme can be scaled starting subtly and increasing its inclusion throughout the story as a way of exacerbation that is also present on the journey as we get closer to reaching closure and the acceptance of a person or thing being lost forever but the memories remaining. Likewise being completely overt is acceptable but often so that the player can relate from their own experiences of grief not necessarily for someone currently going through the process as it may be too triggering.
- is the world realistic or fantasy, both have been used to some extent though even the most realistic ones with real-world stoies have a foot in fiction. This idea of someone in denial being in a "preferred reality" ties in to this as well as not making it too real to maintain some subtlty. I'm initially thinking of an astronaut or some sort of space traveller as the journey of grief is so alien to us when we experience it, even if we have grieved a loss before, having an alien setting also frees up the design process to more experimentation with art rather than relying on reference imagery to have things make sense. However, having it be too unrealistic would make it seem more fictitious and prevent the player from relating to the game or taking a message away from it. A human space traveller of some sort could counter this.
- Prioritisation of the story has often being the case in these games but I must not loose sight of the advantage of tying in art and mechanics equally into the themes for a more interactive experience, especially if we want the player to return to the game with a saved ghost of the second player there has to be an ejoyment factor that gets them to return or some sort of reward to gain - this has been done in other games by having trophies or achievements for collecting certain things that might require the player to replay the game though this is a shortcut for wanting the player to naturally wanting to come back to the game like how the teen in a previous post eventually returned to the racing game he used to play with his father after some time.
