Death Squared is a co-op puzzle game where one player’s mistake makes everyone else lose. You learn cooperative resilience in trying again admits humorous judgments from the unseen “hosts” of the game. In Animal Crossing you get help from the animal neighbours. You learn to lean on this social and environmental resilience to persevere at building social connections with computer villagers and friends online. Stardew Valley’s farming is about growing and maintaining a homestead. Interweaving the busy work are relationships with the other villagers, many of whom are social models for resilience in their storylines. While some video games revel in the density and effort required to discover the narrative in their virtual worlds, others want to make it as easy and accessible to make their story your own. Choices have a tangible effect on how things turn out. For former reduces friction for the player. Games like the Frog's Princess, King of Dragon Pass and Call of the Sea offer a story-book feel with branching narrative that can be a novel way for younger players to discover the joy of stories.
Other games like South of the Circle, Before Your Eyes, Firewatch and It Takes Two offer fully voiced experiences with choices that don't create new endings but still add a sense of involvement. Then there are games for older players like Detroit: Become Human, Last Stop, Grand Theft Auto, Twelve Minutes and Heavy Rain combine branching stories and fully voiced characters. These games use the immersion of the human voice and branching stories to create engaging experiences. Voices and choices are a large part of what it means to be human. The games in this list use these two things to create experiences that engage on a deeper level.
Games include interactions, narratives and characters dealing with all aspects of life (and death). This means that some care is necessary if players are sensitive to losing significant people. But also, games can provide a helpful space in which to process, consider and understand death and loss. I've come up with some games that explore this topic, along with help and suggestions from Gaming The Mind ( Twitter), an organisation of UK-based mental health professionals who aim to promote positive mental health within the gaming community.
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