Unraveling Grief: Design Space Analysis of Death-Themed Games

"Unraveling Grief" is a Design Space Analysis, drawing on the QOC (Questions, Options, Criteria) framework, of death-themed games. Written by Aalto University researchers from a designer-researcher perspective, the study examines how creators structure death, grief, and mourning within interactive media. Its central aim is to move beyond in-depth studies of individual titles by offering a structured Design Space Map that supports both the analysis of existing games and the development of new ones. The map organizes design decisions into four domains: death design, fictional design, visuals, and mechanics.

Across eight examined games, including That Dragon, Cancer, Spiritfarer, and A Mortician's Tale, the analysis finds that the experiential approach shapes emotional outcomes. Individual portrayals, where a single intimate loss is central, tend to produce the strongest emotional impact, while group portrayals encourage broader, more objective reflection on mortality. Most games convey death chiefly through narrative rather than explicit imagery, and recurring motifs such as spiritual gravestones serve as visual shorthand for multiple losses. A later mapping of ten titles, including What Remains of Edith Finch and Before Your Eyes, reinforces this pattern, with playtimes generally ranging from about fifteen minutes to over five hours.

The study further observes that developers consistently favor stylized, colorful art over realistic gore or monochrome palettes, which moderates fear and preserves a reflective, grief-oriented tone. Mechanics tend to be simple and intuitive, frequently omitting traditional death penalties or failure states, which reduces frustration and widens accessibility to non-hardcore players. Design choices cluster around narrative and visual indirection rather than explicit, mechanics-driven confrontation with death.

The authors acknowledge important limitations: the analysis covers a small, selected set of games, reflects a single designer's subjective interpretation, and does not incorporate interviews with original developers. Nonetheless, the Design Space Map offers a transferable tool for both scholarly critique and the prototyping of new death-themed experiences.