Making space for grief release_37gf6ypafzfd3dp5fzk3q24wly

Abstract

This doctoral thesis investigates game design as an expressive modality to represent attachment, loss and grief. While loss as the opposite of winning is ubiquitous in video games, the complex human experience of grief has been little explored by game designers. This thesis looks at the new field of grief-based game design through a multidisciplinary lens, using textual analysis, a participatory design study focused on pregnancy loss, and a constructionist focus on grief as creative process of meaning reconstruction. The analysis part performs close readings of five games which have featured inter-character bonding and loss. The analysis goals are, first, to identify design devices which are used to inform grief-based game design in the case study, and secondly, to critique the limitations of grief-related representations in video games of the past. The participatory design study investigates how game design can accommodate pregnancy loss, a woman-centric domain which has been relatively absent from games. Aims of the case study are threefold. The first one is to study how UX design can handle early involvement of grievers' perspectives through the Trauerspiel informant workshop in Vienna. Secondly, it is to study empathic design as a back and forth between designers and grievers. To do so, muse-based design (Khaled 2014) and metaphorical game design were used to make the game Jocoi with a student team at Aalborg University Copenhagen. Finally, the impact of Jocoi as resource for grievers is investigated. Using the inspirational method of cultural probes, informants' responses to the game were evaluated.
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