Grief Simulator

You showed up for grief group and then everyone got transported to a weird maze dimension. Explore the maze, find the members of your grief group, explore grief via a wheel very similar to the one from Oblivion, and find your way back home. 

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Controls:

WASD to move

Mouse to look around

Controller should work for movement (and some menus? it broke)

E to interact with Group Members 

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Grief is alien until the first time you encounter it, and the closest we come to a universal human experience. There is no way to teach grief, to prepare those who have not yet seen it. Once encountered, you pass through a veil that separates us; those who have lost, and those who have not yet seen loss.

We have inadequate tools for this, no words that mend the hole it tears, no way to fill the deep void grief opens. It is a problem to try and address from either side; for those grieving, it can be exhausting to try and articulate the feel of it. For those observing grief, there is no comparison that adequately explains the pain.

So, too, is the Wheel. It is an inadequate tool, a limitation and source of frustration for those using it and those responding. There are strategies and answers to the puzzle on its face, but they are inelegant. Difficult to explain and confusing to encounter, the Wheel breaks the complexities of communication down into four primitive options.

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As envisioned, Inadequate Tools (Grief Simulator) is a navigation through one’s own grief, and the grief of others. The player, intending to attend a grief group after a terrible loss, instead finds themselves in the maze of Grief, stuck here with the other members of the group. The player must find each of the members in turn and let them tell their stories. Each selection must be balanced between the story told to them, and their own reflections on it. Pairing a deeper part of the storyteller’s sequence with a harsh response from the player does the greatest damage, while pairing it instead with the most forgiving response has the greatest benefit.

As each member of the grief group is found and their alliances secured, the player would be given the opportunity to reflect on their own grief, navigating their feelings with greater and greater benefit as they go. Fully developed, the player would unite all the members of the group and leave the maze of Grief, not healed but transformed.

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Joe also does video essay-ish stuff if you're into that

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Shoutout to Pedalboard Games for putting on such a cool jam, and to the whole Wheeljam community/discord for being a rad and welcoming place to hang out!

I came into this not knowing much about Godot, lots of gumption, and very unrealistic expectations for myself. I may not have gotten even close to my expectations, but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun! 

Meg is helping with a devlog that I'll hopefully have posted here tomorrow that goes into the whole process for the week, and I'm going to try to record a full playthrough for folks who can't download the game, but for now - the submission is in and I can sleep! 

Congratulations to everyone who participated <3