Dear Archibald
Dear Archibald
Embedded Files
Orienting players away from productiveness as virtue and unproductiveness as vice.
1 to 4 Players | Cross-Platform Digital | 10 mins to 1 Hour
The Problem
The Problem
Deeply ingrained, often-unconscious attitudes about productivity and individualism can make it harder for students to treat themselves or others with kindness when productivity isn't possible or advisable. Journaling games and roleplaying games can help us reflect on our values and redefine aspects of our identity, including challenging harmful social norms about productivity and rest. However, these types of games are often out of reach to the people who need it the most. For example, many role-playing and journaling games are not accessible to people less familiar with these genres due to their demanding time, energy, cognition, and preparation requirements. This is even more true for folks with chronic illnesses, including depression and anxiety, both of which are on the rise in college-aged populations.
Game Summary & TRY IT
Game Summary & TRY IT
Dear Archibald is a highly accessible, play-by-text role-playing game for one to five players about community, care, and figuring out who we are to ourselves and to each other. You will need a Discord account to play.
To play, you can add the Discord Bot to any of your servers by clicking here.
Game Goals
Game Goals
Highly accessible: variety of inputs (voice, text) and avoids mechanics that exclude folks with chronic pain or brain fog, platform-flexible.
Incorporates known helpful mechanics from journaling games and roleplaying games that help change or shift identity: writing, values reflection, mindfulness, blended reality, and imagining conversations with non-player characters (NPCs) who have something in common with the player but also hold different perspectives on productivity.
Very short sessions on a monthly basis, indefinitely, as long as they feel they need support.
1-4 players, possibly loose connections to others also playing.
Challenges cultural assumptions about productivity, illness, and control over the body.
Obfuscated: game goals are not overt to the player. This is a game for players with chronic illness and the people who care about them, although we will not directly call this out, and intend for this to be a highly accessible role-playing game for many different kinds of players.
The Research
The Research
A range of design research methods from literature review to heuristic evaluation to the semantic differential technique were employed during the process of creating this prototype.
Discoveries & Outcomes
Discoveries & Outcomes
This concept was accepted as a finalist to the Life, Love. Game Design Competition in June 2024
The original concept of play-by-mail was very appealing to players outside of our key demographics but not at all appealing to our key audience
The most successful micro-activities were ones in which the game environment materially changed based on things found in the real world and the ones in which a layer of fiction obscured when players were writing about real experiences
Players feel most drawn to mechanics & micro-activities related to Counterspaces-- that is, building a protected place for self and/or friends that consciously exists in opposition to prevailing cultural norms
As a result of these findings, we are moving away from play-by-mail or PDF format into a text-based game
Prototypes were created using wizard-of-oz techniques followed by an A/B prototype test in Inform 7 and AI Dungeon. AI Dungeon is currently the most-completed prototype, but limitations on the platform mean that we are transitioning to Inform 7 for the Life, Love, Games Competition in June.
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