Death can be an uncomfortable topic of discussion. Specifically for parents, and especially for those who are emotionally unavailable. Avoiding having this conversation with one’s child, though, has many harmful consequences. Research has shown that not talking about death can increase a child’s fears due to the unknown. To be more frank, children can develop chronic mental health issues including anxiety, depression, persistent grief, and defiance.
Educating younglings can correct any misunderstandings of developed fears as well as improve their coping skills and emotional development. Death among the youth is not abnormal. In fact, the Social Security Administration declared 1.2 million kids with social security benefits because of a deceased family member in 2013. So, this conversation is critical and should happen appropriately as a child is growing when the parents think that he or she is capable of comprehending this matter. While physically sitting down and having a conversation can be unpreferable, there are other ways about going about it. In this case, a choose-your-own-adventure game!
Dumb Ways to Die was the inspiration for my light-hearted death game called Fight or Flight. Death is a sensitive topic and is hard to come about bringing up to our developing youth. This game provides an alternative with a simpler, more sensitive, educational, approach. No need to worry about getting your foot in the door when fight or flight can do it for you to soften things up. While this game is exciting and fun, it also teaches valuable life lessons throughout each round of testing fundamental life skills.
The famous game that inspired me, Dumb Ways to Die, originally stemmed from a PSA for a rail safety campaign by means of a song. Released in November 2012, the song went viral on youtube. Within days the song reached the top 10 chart of iTunes. Now the music video sits at just over two hundred sixty five million views. With the campaign’s success in creating the most shared PSA, they turned it into the iconic video game that many of us know today as Dumb Ways to Die. It included 82 mini-games where the player tried to collect all the “dumb” characters to his or her train station. With 340 million downloads, Dumb Ways to Die enlightened me on the key to a successful game.
What I admired about Dumb Ways to Die was how it was light-hearted, informative, and simple to play. The game is marketed toward a young audience of children to inform them about the safety of rail systems as well as to maintain ease of understanding. Safety can be a tough topic to touch on just as death can be. These were all design strategies that I intended to adopt when I designed my game. I admired how there were little to no instructions and that the game was approachable to almost anyone.
I took inspiration from Dumb Ways to Die within the scope of my game. Fight or Flight is a more reading-heavy game that was created through the platform Twine. I admired the plain cartoon characters and its limited graphics and emulated that with non-explicit photographs and sensitive wording. Even more so, I contained the writing of each round to a minimum where it could be read and completed within the ten second timer.
In Fight or Flight, the player is faced with various challenges which will either end in life or death. The challenges are threatening but mindful. They are sensitive to a younger audience but are still informative. The game is a choose-your-own-adventure, so the player will pick between two options and decide how they would react to the scene. The user must think precisely based on what they know about safety. All the missing gaps the child has in common safety knowledge are aimed to be established throughout the course of the game.
As explained briefly earlier, Fight or Flight is marketed to the youth. Precisely an age range of 6–12, but of course, can be played by anyone of an older audience. While it is a game that can be played by everyone, the main intention is to spread awareness on this topic of passing. Just like Dumb Ways to Die, the game was inspired by their PSA but eventually reached the charts for entertainment.
The approach to fight or flight was focused on evoking an emotion of fear and a sense of urgency. It was successfully done so with the incorporation of a timer, no back button, and only one life. A timer triggers urgency as you must think critically and quickly. In reality, most life-or-death encounters can happen in a matter of seconds. Having to think on one’s toes is a crucial skill to develop that can save a life one day. The elimination of the back button simply represents life. No one can relieve themselves or travel back in time. Whatever is done is done. This significance allows the player to be thoughtful and cautious in their responses because he or she only has one opportunity. Even more, holding the user accountable for their decisions can be more engaging. And lastly, the player is given one life. So he or she must think even more carefully. If played with enough attentiveness the user completes all levels and makes it out of the game alive. This can be difficult, though. And it is just as important for the user to die and have the game end so that there could be a learning lesson.
Fight or Flight incorporates many obstacles including but not limited to realistic circumstances such as allergic reactions, fire, and drowning with a mix of more playful scenarios such as a zombie apocalypse. It aligns with a child’s broad imagination as well as soft-launching the idea of death out there for one of the first times. At each life-threatening event or a round of the game, the user is faced with just two options. This maintains the simplicity for the game to proceed more efficiently and increases the chances of survival as there is a half chance of surviving instead of decreasing chance with every new option added.
Before designing my game I researched what it was that made a game noteworthy. I intended to embody these elements in my own way so that my game could become prosperous as well. In class, I remember discussing a Jam City article that discussed the basics of a good story. A few things that I took away from it was focusing on evoking a certain emotion. In my case that was fear. Ryan Kaufman, the author of the article, goes on to mention how the emotional journey is what is crucial, not the direct journey. Emotions are able to resurface many memories and incorporating them into a game allows it to be relatable and bring “real-life feeling”. Even more, given that Fight or Flight is a choose-your-own-adventure, it allows for a creative space since the player is able to personalize their experience.
With more research, I was able to find the importance of evoking emotion in a video game. It has been explained that most gamers fancy something that gives a feeling. In doing so, it gives a more meaningful experience than most people get out of films and fictional books. Along with this, it was stated that “The immersion that people experience during gameplay is thus a useful way to experientially transport players into tough moral situations that allow them to explore their moral identity in a realistic but safe way.” In the same way, Fight or Flight allows the player to make their own decisions as if they were in that life-threatening situation. It is eliciting how the player would react in the real world.
Aside from emotional connection and the interactive aspects of what makes a hit game, visuals and graphics can be just as important. It sets the tone and mood for the player. It is the first thing that anyone sees and can make a judgment on. Just like a first impression.
In Fight or Flight, the setting is dark. The colorway is predominantly red and black. I believed these colors best-represented death, fear, and stress. Along with this, I coded the options to rumble so that they would shake which could resemble the nervousness the player is experiencing. It would make the options a little more difficult to read which would take up some time in the game, just as in real life where stress slows down a response time.
Overall I had a gratifying experience developing Fight or Flight. It was a rollercoaster of emotions for me since I was given so much flexibility in my customizations. I eventually narrowed it down to what it is right now, and what I believe best encapsulates the overall message of safety and death as a concept. Each page was meticulously created from the color to the words to the visuals. I give most of my inspiration credibility to the chart-topping mobile game, Dumb Ways to Die.