How Games Can Help Us Grieve with Dr Emma Reay (S2E17)

Safe Space: The Video Games Mental Health Podcast

In this episode, Rosie is joined by Dr Emma Reay, Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton, who researches Games Studies and Game Design.

Emma has previously looked at exploring the therapeutic effects of games for mood repair, building resilience and community, and joins us to discuss games and grief.

We chat about how death is interpreted in gaming, as a fail-state, and how we can look more closely at games who look at death within games as a win state. What happens when we start to uncouple loss and losing? We dive into games such as Spiritfarer, and What Remains of Edith Finch to elaborate on this.

Rosie opens up about her grief during university, and how she used Kingdom as a way to recuperate and process what had happened. We look at how technology has started to change the way that we can grieve loss, and in many ways immortalise who/what we have lost.

We also chat about very real narratives and storytelling through games such as That Dragon, Cancer and Before Your Eyes, and how games can be used as an immersive tool to be a part of the grief process - not just for the player, but for the developer as well.

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