Using Games for Reflection

Its been a while since I created this game which is my first real independent piece. It is a digital poem that captures a very challenging time in my life, melding a mundane task into a metaphor for hope and personal growth.

I was inspired one day working in the garden, where I am an experienced hobbyist. My life is rather busy and despite that I still find joy in growing things and there is scientific evidence that there are positive health impacts including reduced stress and other physiological benefits. Often because of my schedule and the nature of living in the northeast this means I need to work in sub-optimal (rainy) conditions but I know that its important to having a successful garden each year. My definition of success for my garden has always been to get incrementally better each year and I realized that I didn’t think of my life in that manner.

So looking back in May I was pulling up fiddleheads and asparagus and watching my radishes sprout I was able to reconnect with that experience. I am now able to understand that consider it a real piece because it still has a valuable meaning to me. At the time I was inspired by emotion and a desire to use a new tool, the work was cathartic but I didn’t think much on it once I had uploaded it. Upon reflection I am filled with increased joy and determination than if I had not created this piece.

It was incredibly difficult for me to complete this project and then share it publicly. My past experience had been working with commercial software with mid-sized teams so the motivation to create something on my own was my first hurdle. The work I can create alone within a limited time frame is significantly below the quality of work I would expect in the past.

But most importantly this experience is unlike anything I have shared before, its very personal and the content I am working with is emotional — what will people think of me after experiencing it? I thought of how important other games with similarly challenging themes have been for my personal growth as well as for the industry so it seemed meaningful to get it into a shareable state.

There are a growing number of games that explore serious emotions and cover serious personal topics such as loss, depression and unhealthy relationships. They allow the player to live through an experience and consider someone living through that problem in the real world. There are fewer games that inspire or create joy or build resilience under those circumstances and would like the explore the genre in general further in my work.