Playing at empathy: Representing and experiencing emotional growth through Twine games

Abstract

While many games use physical health as a metric and ask the player to become invested in “health” as a resource, emotional health and experiences of trauma, depression, stress, and anxiety are less frequently explored. Yet games represent a powerful space for exploring emotional conditions and allowing players to experiment with choices in the face of difficult circumstances. The Twine platform, a free open-source tool for making primarily text-based games, offers a compelling system for representations of this kind. Close play of games made with this system demonstrates that what is essential for emotional representation is not player agency: instead, it is the lack of choice that is most strongly resonant.