Gaming for healing and recovery

I've had a lot of time to rest and heal following a traumatic injury. After a while, it gets hard to rest unless you can keep your mind occupied.

One bed-rest activity I found is a computer adventure platform game called "Gris." It was released in 2018 by Spain's Nomada Studio. The name "Gris," Spanish for gray, is the name of the character you inhabit throughout the game.

I typically don't have time for gaming besides the occasional Sudoku or crossword while waiting in a doctor's office. The few computer games I'm attracted to are puzzle-adventures with sophisticated and artistic environments. Gris is one of the most beautiful games I've found.

The adventure follows Gris, a young girl lost in a world of her own while dealing with grief. She has sustained an undefined painful experience. This is expressed in the visual interface, which starts with a gray monotoned environment. As Gris moves through her inward self, she encounters obstacles and challenges in a rich watercolor atmosphere of broken stone structures and geometric forests.

Signs of your progress as Gris will manifest in her dress and cape, the instruments through which she receives new abilities and discovers unique strengths. These help her navigate through her faded reality. At first, she can only crawl; soon, she can run and jump. If you are like me, someone who easily immerses themselves in a movie, you'll feel proud when the character discovers new powers.

As the play progresses and phases of the journey are completed, colors are added to the environment. Things shift into red, then blue, and then green. The farther you progress with the character, the more complex and nuanced the environment becomes, expressing the healing journey.

The experience of Gris is modeled on Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's stages of grief, with which many of us are familiar. As expressed in "Gris," each level is coded as a stage of grief and gains a color for each. Respectively, the levels are grey for denial, red for anger, green for bargaining, and yellow for acceptance.

Games similar to Gris are often designed to promote the connection between play and conscious therapy. The play experience in Gris is as clever and inspiring as it is thoughtful and challenging. Playing on a laptop involved a handful of keyboard commands I was able to easily master. The timing of these controls and how they work together was not as easy. I have had moments of frustration, but only when I think I have to get somewhere fast. In this game, you are rewarded for patience. The game does not contain elements of danger, frustration, or death.

There are no harsh penalties or fails in Gris. There are do-overs and places where you feel stuck. You'll have to try and try again before you master something. However, the game is not a race unless you get obsessive about it. It's best not to think of it as something to "beat." You won't conquer it in a day and shouldn't try. It is developed as a calm and thoughtful way to engage and move through one step at a time.

While it's helpful to play games designed to take our mind off stressful things, it's beneficial to play games like Gris that help us feel we're making progress. Remarkably, one reviewer wrote of the game's impact, "When I got to the end I cried."

Gris has the potential to be an effective play therapy for teens, maybe especially for girls who have experienced trauma, loss, and grief. Younger children might enjoy it, also, even if they aren't aware of the therapeutic dimensions reflected in the gameplay.

Detailed and delicate, Gris is underscored with a gorgeous musical track available on YouTube. Walkthroughs to help when you're stuck can also be found on YouTube and other sites. Gris should be played on a pad, laptop, computer, or larger screen. Headphones are recommended for an immersive experience. It is available on most operating systems as a single-player experience and age-rated E for Everyone. Depending on the version, you'll only pay $5-10 on Google Play or the Apple Store. It is well worth the price to find you can walk on stars.