If you like video games and struggle with the Big Sad Boss fight of daily life sometimes, read on for my suggestions of games with written reflection practices.
Video Games Can Provide an Intentional Space for Creative Expression
Historically, humans have used expressive writing to document and persuade the interests of our kind. The exercise of writing down what you are feeling has been proven to aid certain emotional and physical health benefits – particularly those who struggle with mental health disorders and traumas. Those who do participate in writing out their feelings have been shown to generally have significantly better physical and psychological outcomes compared with those who write about neutral topics.
This is to say that too, the quality of content being written must be personalized – any prompt for any amount of time will do, as long as the focus is on holding a different perspective. Some studies say that with the practice of intentional writing in this way, one can improve views on the importance of writing in perspective taking, enhance understanding of the self and others, and thus improve promotion of health and healing holistically.
Adding a simple gratitude list to your life has also been shown to improve overall outlook on life. In a smaller study, conducted on volunteers seeking counseling services through a university, three control groups were created: one without written reflection, one with written reflection, and one with a written gratitude specific prompt. The results of these observations showed that the gratitude group reported having lessened their negative emotion words more than the other two groups.
If you are associating all this writing talk with paper and pen, then this article is exactly for you. I have written previously of my love of the video game Kind Words (read it here!) and in my opinion this game creates the best space for a written practice close to the one stated in the studies above. With most of the players and features of the game randomized and anonymous, this video game takes the cake for the best place to practice holding, and responding to, all kinds of different perspectives. Alternatively, it provides a more intimate space to write harder reflections out into a void with less online scrutiny. Be aware though, much like the ups and downs of all our mental days, this game can be really heavy at times. Log out if it doesn’t feel good, always.
Some Games Are Good At Reflection Prompting, But It’s Not The Main Focus
I’ve also spent some time documenting my overall enjoyment in the game Sky: Children of the Light. A primary focus of this game does require the player to consider others in a lot of different ways, which is adjacent to the feelings a written exercise may also provide. However, there are daily quests in the game that are randomized. Occasionally in the game there is the quest to write a response to a prompt. The game calls this a “meditation.” The prompts tackle a variety of personal areas; including prompts like “what’s your comfort food?” or “how can you be a good ally?” The prompts are limited and in my years’ worth of playing this game, I have gotten the same prompts from time to time. In these instances, I try to never give the same answer. Additionally, I give myself grace on the days that providing a new answer is too difficult, so I end up writing the same thing that is still true to me. I feel that this expressive practice for myself was intentionally built in this game by the developers. I also enjoy reading the posted answers of other players in the game. If you are looking for an introduction writing in smaller steps, this game’s meditations are perfect for that.
Spirit City: Lofi Sessions is a personal task management game. As of the time of writing this article, it is still in it’s demo phase. However, with the given free mechanics of the game, everything is written and personalized to you and your to-do list. This, to me, also feels adjacent to the feelings of daily awareness of self and others. And because it is a game where you need to type, the written part of this game is a more obvious and literal one. The demo teases features it will release with the full game release sometime next year – including the setting up of routines to be reused, and a journal portion that I assume will be for note-taking. Also at the time of this writing, I can hope that the journal feature maybe incorporates some of the meditative prompting of the above mentioned games.
My Go-To Game for Daily Gratitude (And Some Reflection)
Finch: Self Care Pet is an application that operates much like the beloved Tamagotchi that you may or may not have owned as a child. To grow and care for this pet requires the user to strive for goals in a number of categories: such as brushing your teeth, paying for a stranger’s coffee, or picking up trash on your next walk outside. Your pet then gains strength to travel around the world and learn about different cultures. At the end of the day, after the day’s worth of traveling, your pet will ask you a question and your response will dictate how the pet’s personality grows. At every instance, this app encourages you to write down your thoughts and feelings. You can write about other players in your “tree house,” something else difficult going on in your life, or even how a discovery of your pet made you feel.
I have been a paid member of this app for more than a year now. My pet Tofu and I have travel and learned about Paro, Tokyo, Rajkovic, Paris, and Finchie Forest. I don’t often write in this app but when I do it is usually a guided meditation or prompt built within the app itself. Once, Tofu discovered that they strongly disliked the video game Mario Kart and I definitely wrote my feelings about that in the app. The neat thing about using the app for reflection is that the app uses it’s own hashtag feature to choose negative word emotions to highlight and combine so that habits around those emotions become more present.
What About Writing Haters?
The hope of this article is that you can use a different interest, such as video games, to dip your fingers and mind into the practice of written reflection. These are three very different entry-level games to your own ability and I trust you to find what works best for you. At the very least, use a note keeping app the next time you feel overwhelmed and try the basics – make a list of the things you’re grateful for right now. The game then becomes your quest to keep it up for your own happiness. You can find my tutorials and PDFs for a simple daily routine on YouTube – link soon.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Get Writing!
