Anger & Bargaining 💢 [Geeks & Grounds #055]
Through colors, instrumentation, fine-lined ruins, bird-like creatures, and even the mechanics, the team has utilized symbolism to represent elements surrounding feelings of grief in Gris.
![Anger & Bargaining 💢 [Geeks & Grounds #055]](https://storage.ghost.io/c/71/ea/71ea162e-00aa-4a99-9dba-63907ae61e7e/content/images/size/w2000/2024/05/1920-anger.png)
this week's podcast 🎧
our recap discussion & deep dive on what we played last week
We begin with our histories of playing Gris. Joel comes at this title with MUCH more experience, while I've only played it the one time – but both of us agree, it was definitely a title we've continued to consider. Does Gris approach grief in an accessible way? Listen to the discussion, and feel free to let us know what you think!
🥐☕ the pastry case // show links
- Balatro: Sudden Ratings Shift brings to mind the Sunshine Shuffle removal.
- Final Fantasy 7 has taken over both of our lives at the moment: have any of you been playing? Write back and let me know what you think so far!
this week's brew ☕
what we're focusing on this week.
As you play Gris, you’ll quickly notice that there really isn’t overt text or dialogue explaining everything to you. The game relies on your interpretations, your experiences, to help inform what you take away. I did make the intentional choice to share — if you hadn’t figured it out via the game’s store pages — that the developers intended for this title to be about grief. In fact, it draws from a popular Western framework of grief called the Kübler-Ross five stage grief model (which isn’t without it’s critiques, so definitely take a moment to read both what it proposes as well as some of the critiques about this model). Going through the game, we encounter the interpretation Nomada Studio had for each particular stage in this model.
Through colors, instrumentation, fine-lined ruins, bird-like creatures, and even the mechanics, the team has utilized symbolism to represent elements surrounding feelings of grief. I’m looking forward to hearing about the ways that you encounter and interpret each element as you go through this week’s stages: Anger (Red) and Bargaining (Green).
As always, I’ve got the playthrough guide here, along with some additional resources for you to pour over below including a walkthrough for anyone attempting to 100% this game and really dig into some of the hidden elements.
reflection question 💭
reflect on a question related to the game by drawing in your experiences, other media, and the game itself in your response. if you'd like, send your thoughts my way – i read all of them – and you may get featured in a future newsletter!
How does Gris use symbolism to tell it’s story? Is there an element you feel is most impactful to you thus far?
last week's question & my response
Is there a game - or a portion of a game - you’ve played that captured grief (or grieving) for you effectively? What game was it and how did it do that?
While video games often deal with situations that involve grief and trauma, this week’s reflection was interesting for me as I realized how many games exploit those emotions for instigating events, yet don’t often delve into the process of living with grief explicitly (or about the means to work through grief). If anything, I had more memory of comical ways I’ve seen grief or mourning gamified ("Press F to pay respects" anyone?).
That being said, particularly in the indie space, there was one game that immediately came to mind. The Mortician’s Tale is a short, story-driven game about a mortician running a funeral home. It’s a death-positive game with the goal of allowing players a bit of insight on the western death industry, but I found it also provided space to show what mourning and grief looks like beyond anger and vengeance (which is so often how grief seems to manifest in games).
Another game that game to mind was one with a bit more of a real life application: That Dragon, Cancer was a game that the developers made as part of their grieving process. The game is the developer’s love letter to his son, Joel, made to honor his 4-year fight against cancer, and while playing was an incredibly emotional experience (and not for everyone), it has been one of the most impactful games I’ve ever played. The game itself goes through how this family works through the grief of receiving the diagnosis using home video, recorded voice over, poetry, and more in a short (about 2 hour) interactive experience.
If you’re wanting to dive into a couple more games, I wanted to highlight Spiritfarer, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and Last Day of June as additional titles to explore on this theme.
As a side note: if anyone happens to be attending PAX East, one of the panels I’ll be participating in tackles the topic of grief in games. I’m really looking forward to it: we did this panel at PAX West and it was one of my favorite panel experiences perhaps to date, so if you can make it, I’d highly recommend stopping by and saying hi!
pour over ☕
sift through these supplementary links and suggested activities to help explore the game's connections to your life and the world around us.
- We talked a bit about how the mechanics of Gris really set us up to feel grief in a tangible way – this article does have slight mechanical spoilers if you haven't finished the game, but it's well worth a read to think about an additional interpretation of the game's meaning as well as the ways the mechanics inform how a player interprets the game.
- For anyone hoping to 100% the game (or if you get stuck in some of these areas, as they can get a bit more expansive to navigate), here's a walkthrough to help!
Thanks for joining our digital café this week – talk soon!
🌻☕ Jenny