Currently, I on a path to design a cooperative board game with the intent to have players navigate through loss together. I want players to discuss how and why they are making mindful decisions around grief. In order to develop a game, I need to do more secondary research on game design, specifically around board games and cooperative games.

Primary Research

I scheduled an interview with Sarah a few weeks back and our timing finally worked this week. I wanted to talk to her about her experience with loss but also her experience with creating something through grief. I learned about her process with creating a podcast about individuals who have experienced the loss of a parent and also gained her critique on my current ideas.

Sarah Davis

40 YEARS OLD \\ FEMALE \\ Instructional Design Consultant \\ HAS EXPERIENCED LOSS

“I lost my father to a 2nd round of cancer in 2016 … it felt sudden to me because I wasn’t geographically near him.”
“I went into grief meditation and it was similar to shamanic rituals … I had a vision of my father when he was younger. I saw him at the house that is strongly connected to his parents. And he told me ‘You create your own reality,’ and I knew I had to do something to connect back to him. So I went exploring to figure out what I could possibly do to create something out of my grief. With a writing background, I thought maybe I’ll write a children’s book… maybe I’ll write a memoir but I quickly realized I wasn’t ready to write a memoir.”
“I came up with the podcast on accident actually. I attended a retreat for professional working women with intent to network and learn. But one of the questions they had was ‘what is something you’re always thinking about’ and for me that was grief. I knew I had to tap into my creative side and create something.”
“I don’t think grief will ever go away. It’s something that is apart of me now.”
“Losing my dad felt like I was losing my anchor, my stability, my sense of home.”
“Grief is not in ‘stages’ it’s in waves.”
“Post traumatic growth: a chance to reflect and change something for the better.”

Secondary Research - Grief

I knew I needed a bit more research before starting game design to see how I could organize the narrative of the game. If I were to design around the 5 stages of grief, I needed to learn about how different people view the stages.

https://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/

Secondary Research - Game Design

In order to develop a game, I need to learn about game design. I don’t have a lot of experience with game design but I thought this was a perfect opportunity to learn. I looked into how to design cooperative games because I want to create something people need to navigate together and not against each other.

Important mechanics to consider in a cooperative game:

Time Restraints
- Something increases every round unless ___
- Every turn needs __ amount of time
Different Roles

everyone contributes in a different way
need everyone to reach goal

Different levels of difficulty

To make gameplay different every time
Sometimes people want to challenge themselves

Resources

Shared resources?
How to collect resources?

I also explored the current scope of existing cooperative games such as Pandemic, Mysterium, and Spirit Island. A common theme among cooperative games is that they are fantasy-like where it immerses you into a new world. Additionally, these games tend to have very long game play of 60-120 minutes or more.

Ideation

End Goal

Grief is accepted and understood

Concepts

Ocean
- Let grief “wash over you”
- Fill up ocean to win (feelings and emotions are fully felt through grief)
Garden
- Tend the garden to accept grief
- Cut away at vines of “denial” of the garden
- Fully expose garden to win (when grief is fully accepted)

Mechanics

Collect emotions, feelings, memories
Randomized board tiles
- Board tile types
  - Sad
  - Happy
  - Neutral
  - Acceptance (can only be drawn on certain conditions)
- Similar to the waves of emotions of grief: unpredictable and ever changing
Collaborative
- Players need to decide together if they want to progress on an action
Cards
- Emotions
  - Denial, anger, regret, shock, etc.
  - Need to collect certain emotions in order to complete some actions
- Actions
  - Draw tiles to expand board
    - Risk of receiving sad tiles which may have repercussions but needed in order to progress in the game
  - Remove tiles
    - If condition cannot be met (e.g. doesn’t have x amount of ___)
  - Collect Emotions by trading in other Emotions
  - Shuffle tiles
  - Fill ___ if condition is met (e.g. x amount of ___)

Feedback

During the mini group critique during class, I wanted to receive people’s feedback and thoughts on my current idea to create a board game around grief and loss.

Things to consider

Differences between people who are grieving vs. those supporting who are grieving
Time within the game
- 1 space = 1 day, 1 month, 1 year, etc
- How time relates to letting go
Artifacts in healing
- People feel connected to artifacts that remind them of their lost loved ones
Garden metaphor vs. ocean metaphor
- Cutting away, tending, pour out, filling up
Why is there a negative stigma around grief?
- Answer to this can help navigate around the topic

Reflection

I need to consider many different elements within game design to even begin designing a prototype of a game. I learned about different mechanics I can incorporate into board games which is something I will think about for different rough drafts.

I’m in the process of figuring out which elements I want to test out, what matches the themes/metaphors I want to convey, and how to design a board game. But after the week’s interview and Friday’s group critique I gained some clarity on how to focus my ideas.

Next Steps

I’m going to try to make paper prototypes of different versions of the board game. This will allow me to rearrange and edit things quickly. It might be beneficial to use some color to help differentiate different elements. If possible, it would be nice to get feedback on some of the ideas - from both a game perspective and through the lens of grief.

Senior Thesis

Game Design (10/21-10/27)