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A cultural trauma
The paper treats the pandemic as a cultural trauma in the making.
The author draws on the idea of the pandemic as a "cultural trauma in the making" to frame how games engaged with it. The focus is the lockdown period and the rise of video games as a legitimate cultural form.
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- 01The paper argues that pandemic-era video games helped people make sense of an emerging cultural trauma by modelling systems and conveying meaning procedurally, going beyond mere distraction or social connection.
- 02The analysis draws on a corpus of 49 entries from IndieCade's 2020 "Jamming the Curve" design competition, where teams had two weeks to build serious games grounded in real epidemiological data.
- 03Using procedural rhetoric analysis, the author selected games that treated spatiality as a gameplay feature, used real-world data meaningfully, and generated procedural knowledge otherwise unavailable; spatiality and agency emerge as the central dimensions of how these games model the crisis.
- 04The selected games group into three spatial approaches: those giving the player considerable agency and responsibility to explore (e.g., the competition winner Cat Colony Crisis), those translating social distancing rules into puzzle mechanics that foster hope (e.g., Stars Apart, Together), and those restricting movement to mirror lockdown powerlessness (e.g., NonEssential).
- 05The paper contends that games reflecting the erosion of agency, while also offering scenarios of hope, can envision positive outcomes and promote a notion of care.
- 06The concept of care identified in these games encompasses observing distancing rules to protect others, reaching out, practising self-care, and responding to those in need.
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Summary
This paper examines how video games engaged with the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the medium helped people make sense of a nascent cultural trauma and map possible courses of action. Drawing on the idea of the pandemic as a "cultural trauma in the making," the author contends that games, alongside their role as distraction, offered commentary on pandemic conditions through their distinctive capacity to model systems and convey meaning procedurally. The analysis focuses on the lockdown period and the rise of video games as a legitimate cultural form.
The study's corpus comprises 49 entries submitted to IndieCade's 2020 "Jamming the Curve" design competition, in which teams had two weeks to create serious games based on real epidemiological data. Using procedural rhetoric analysis, the author selected games according to three criteria: treating spatiality as a gameplay feature, using real-world data meaningfully, and generating procedural knowledge otherwise unavailable. Spatiality and agency are identified as the central dimensions through which these games model the crisis.
The selected games fall into three groups according to how they handle space. The first centers on a player in charge who explores the game world, offering considerable agency and responsibility, as in the competition winner Cat Colony Crisis. The second translates social distancing rules into puzzle mechanics, fostering playfulness and a sense of hope, exemplified by Stars Apart, Together. The third restricts spatial movement to the point of diminishing agency, as in NonEssential, which mirrors the isolation and powerlessness of lockdown life.
The paper concludes that pandemic-related games do more than provide distraction or social connection. By reflecting the erosion of agency and offering scenarios of hope, they can envision positive outcomes and promote a notion of care, encompassing observance of distancing rules to protect others, reaching out, self-care, and responsiveness to those in need.
