Some Grief Games
While researching in the academic field of grief game design, I also have been playing and analyzing games that concern themselves with the topic of sadness, grief and death. While my analysis notes on these games are way to large to display them here, I just want to take this opportunity to shout them out, because they are all amazing games and should be played, not just by grieving players!
I started my journey of grief games with a real hit! “What remains of Edith Finch” is what some would call a walking simulator, but it feels like it is much more. You play the titular Edith Finch, who is the last remaining member of the finch family, as an apparent family curse has killed all other Finches over the last 100 years. You as Edith return to your childhood home to take a tour of your passed relatives’ stories and appreciate their legacies. To avoid spoilers, I will leave it at that storewise. The development team has such an amazing eye for detail that you could probably spend 20 hours just reading every book-spine and finding small hints at a deeper lore in seemingly randomly strewn about personal effects of the family members. But my personal favorite sections of the game are those in which you take the perspective of Edith’s various relatives in the moments before their deaths! There is some truly heart wrenching stuff there and I really really suggest you go play it right now, because it is lovely.
I also re-played an old classic: “Max Payne 3”. This game has much more of a subtle connection with grief, since the events that drove Max Payne, a washed up New York cop gone private bodyguard in Brazil, to go increasingly unhinged took place far in his past at the time of Max Payne 3. However, the alcoholic, pain killer addicted Max really shows what the deep end of non-overcome grief can do with a person, as it feels like he is so dead inside that he almost intentionally keeps putting himself in terrible danger. It didn’t really help me learn much more about grief game design, but it is a very good game and certainly endorsed by me!
One game that cannot be missed on a list of grief-related games is “Shadow of the Colossus”. This all time classic tells the story of Wander, a young man whose girlfriend recently died. He goes on a quest to a forbidden land to find an imprisoned god that may be able to revive her. However, Wander is tasked with killing 16 colossi that roam the land in exchange for his girlfriends life. I don’t want to talk about the progression of the game too much, since if you haven’t played it, you should find out about the game’s story yourself. Right Now. Seriously, drop everything right now and go play it. If I was to suggest anyone to play one game, it would be this one.
A game that I actually played previously to the death of my stepfather is “Gris”. This very beautiful game is an allegory on the 5 stages of grief, which is artistically expressed by the desaturation of the world the game plays in, followed by the restoration its colors as the protagonist travels through it and confronts her denial, anger, bargaining, depression and lastly arrives at acceptance. There’s not much more to say about it, but it is one of the pretties games that I know and certainly worth the roughly 15 pounds it costs.
Lastly, I want to endorse an absolute niche title. “The Loss Levels” is a collection of 10 second microgames by a young Manchester-based developer who created it in response to his brother’s death in the Manchester stadium bombing of 2017. It literally takes a few minutes to play, which is why I will just let you play it instead of talking about it anymore. While I didn’t anticipate this, it certainly packed a real punch for someone who had just gone through grief themselves. It can be played for free here: https://danhett.itch.io/the-loss-levels
Thank you for reading!