Abstract
This paper explores indexical symbolic enactment as a way to promote authenticity and inner balance through digital games. Drawing on research from cognitive anthropology, neurobiology, and psychology, the following presents an argument for why and how indexical symbolic enactment can impact us on a deep, unconscious level and contribute to personal transformation. It identifies four high-level guidelines that can inform existential transformative game design: (1) ritual theming (i.e., liberation, transformation, and commemoration/celebration); (2) metaphorical approach; (3) contextual mechanisms that promote a readiness for change and processing; and (4) psychological resonance. It then uses these guidelines as an analytical lens for a case study on the game Papo & Yo (Minority Media Inc., 2012). This analysis shows how indexical symbolic enactment can contribute to a game’s transformative potential and examines missed opportunities when design decisions emphasize gameplay considerations rather than symbolic congruency and psychological resonance.
Highlights
How can we intentionally design for deep, transformative gameplay experiences that contribute to a meaningful life for players? Adopting a perspective informed by existential psychotherapy, a meaningful life is one in which one has faced and accepted the inevitability of death, developed a sense for one’s purpose or calling, focused on making self-directed choices that are in alignment with one’s true nature, and cultivated quality connections to something beyond oneself (Existential Psychotherapy, Yalom, 1980)
Inspired by ritual use in psychotherapy and Jodorowski’s poetic acts, we argue that indexical symbolic enactments of inner conflicts in games and digital media can send powerful signals to the unconscious mind, contributing to greater authenticity and inner balance
Those guidelines can be summarized as (1) identifying a narrative theme and structure that is inspired by the three types of rituals: liberation, transformation and commemoration/celebration; (2) embedding symbolic enactment into a metaphorical environment; (3) considering contextual mechanisms that allow players to “warm up” to the inner conflict modeled in the game and promote its “processing;” and (4) designing for psychological resonance by aiming for emotional evocativeness, sensual vividness, minimal counterintuitiveness, and low complexity of actions and objects involved in the enactment as noted by Goodwyn (2016)
Summary
How can we intentionally design for deep (in the sense discussed by Rusch, 2016), transformative gameplay experiences that contribute to a meaningful life for players? Adopting a perspective informed by existential psychotherapy, a meaningful life is one in which one has faced and accepted the inevitability of death, developed a sense for one’s purpose or calling, focused on making self-directed choices that are in alignment with one’s true nature, and cultivated quality connections to something beyond oneself (Existential Psychotherapy, Yalom, 1980). Rusch (2020) discussed in detail the various goals of existential psychotherapy and how they can inform game experience goals, while Phelps has focused on encoding “deep” meanings through experiential and proceduralized gameplay (Phelps et al, 2020) This article extends these ideas and focuses on the idea of a meaningful life from the perspective of authenticity and inner balance, and on “symbolic enactment.”. Our method is to draw from a broad range of research sources, including cognitive anthropology, existential and depth psychology, neurobiology, and game design/ studies, to craft an argument for how and why symbolic enactment can be psychologically powerful and how it can inform transformative gameplay experiences. Papo & Yo lends itself to this analysis, because (a) the game deals with an inner conflict – the emotional struggle of a boy to “let go” of the desire to save his alcoholic father, (b) it uses ritualistic/spiritual motifs in its narrative and mechanics, and (c) it was intentionally created to promote transformation and healing
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