Edge of Healing
A downloadable game
Edge of Healing: Environmental Storytelling and Restorative Justice is a short, experimental environment storytelling game that uses the virtual environment to simulate the practice of Restorative Justice in ways that illustrate the experience of the participants and the functions of the spaces that Restorative Justice can take place in.
Official Selection: Different Games 2018
The idea for the project developed from two major interests.
The first was a desire to depart from pervasive depictions of prisons in games which are often abstract representations of America’s prison nation. When a game uses prisons as part of its narrative or gameplay there is a tendency to neglect how our punitive justice system disproportionately victimizes and disenfranchises people of color, poor people, and those who are mentally ill. There is also a failing to show the inimical impact mass incarceration has on all society. This misinformation to the public disregards a designer’s role in socially constructing real world understanding of crime and punishment. It is true that no representation will be complete and without abstraction.
The second major interest stemmed from how mental health is portrayed in games and how trauma is represented in media. Temitope's interest in justice in games aligned with Emperatriz's interest in designing narratives & researching the justice system's impact on mental health.
During development, one focus was on environmental storytelling and another focus was on narrative and communication. This project developed as an effort to create a game that connects the conversations on the real world practice of Restorative Justice to video games.
About the developers:
Temitope Olujobi is a trained 3D environment and digital artist working as a video games designer and architectural visualization specialist. Their work has been exhibited in galleries and Journals including the New York City Storefront for Art and Architecture, and most recently at the Responsive Cities conference at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.
Emperatriz Ung is a Chinese-Colombian game designer & writer from the American Southwest. Follow her on Twitter at @mprtrzng.
If you are interested in playing Edge of Healing please contact Temitope & Emperatriz.
