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Uses interaction, dialogue, and exploration to foreground social class and mental health, concluding that the game offers designers a model for addressing complex topics through thoughtful spatial design.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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Class  \n•  \nMia Consalvo and Andrew Phelps  \nThe authors provide a deep reading of the fictional small American town of Possum Springs in the 2017 adventure game Night in the Woods (NiTW) to demonstrate how game architecture and environments have become richer and more complex spaces for narrative development and storytelling. The act of navigating the game’s town, they assert, repeatedly creates its own narrative effect and commentary on the current issues of social class and mental health. They note that the game, through repetition and proceduralization, purposefully links the economic conditions of the town with the mental illness suffered by its characters and uses elements of interaction, dialogue, and exploration to highlight these issues. They conclude that NiTW offers a unique insight into the ways game designers can address complex topics through the careful and considered use of the cities, towns, architecture, and settings ofthe worlds their games inhabit. Key words: environmental storytelling; mental health; nodal space; procedurality; social class; spatial story telling; video games  \nIntroduction  \nThis article provides a deep reading of the fictional small American town of Possum Springs in the 2017 adventure game Night in the Woods (NiTW) to demonstrate how the architecture and environments of contemporary digital games have become rich and complex spaces in which players better understand various social, cultural, and political concerns. We chose Night in the Woods for several reasons. It has been both a critical and commercial success, which suggested a wide engagement with a broad audience. More importantly, it pays thoughtful attention to two largely neglected aspects of contemporary culture in video games: social class and mental health, and we appreciated its timelinessin addressing these topics at this moment in American history.  \n338  \nAmerican Journal of Play, volume 12, number 3 © The Strong [Contact Mia Consalvo @ at mia.consalvo@concordia.ca](Contact Mia Consalvo @ at mia.consalvo@concordia.ca)  \nOur analysis was prepared prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we believe the game’s critiques ofthe precarity of working-class existence and mental health issues and support structures are even more salient now. We argue that these elements are directly implicated in the game’s spatial setting and architecture and deserve attention. Although most analyses of video games focus on their characters and narratives, we believe that attention to game setting or location is also key. In particular Night in the Woods creates a particular kind of setting and proceduralizes game play in ways that allow for a form of spatial storytelling or narrative architecture different from prior conceptualizations of the term and adds to how we can understand the evolution of video games.  \nBefore proceeding with this analysis, we want to address critical issues surrounding the game’s developers, because their own backgrounds were drawn upon in building the game and one of the developers was later accused by several people of abusive behavior. Night in the Woods was created by Infinite Fall studio, comprised of Alec Holowka (programming), Scott Benson (art and animation), and Bethany Hockenberry (writing) who were also the principal designers. Holowka often served as the team’s public face, as he did in his keynote at the Meaningful Play 2018 conference when he addressed various mental health issues the game attempted to model in depth, pointing to his own struggles with mental illness as one guide (Holowka 2018). Yet Holowka’s history was not the only inspiration for the game; other developers used their own backgrounds as reference. For example, Scott Benson—in an extended 2019 Medium post detailing the way he was abused by Holowka himself—also writes that he and Hockenberry largely conceived the working-class town se","cbCaiuI3vjmxLTaL","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiuI3vjmxLTaL","pdf",305303,25,"English","# Introduction\n## Purpose of the Analysis\n## Relevance Amid COVID-19\n## Attention to Game Setting\n## Developers and Ethical Considerations","[{\"question\":\"What is the central focus of the article’s analysis?\",\"answer\":\"The article examines how the fictional town of Possum Springs in Night in the Woods uses architecture, environments, and gameplay navigation to create narrative meaning about social class and mental health.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect the town’s economy to characters’ mental illness?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that repetition and proceduralization intentionally link the town’s economic conditions with the mental illness its characters experience, reinforced through interactions, dialogue, and exploration.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article address the game’s developers’ backgrounds and allegations?\",\"answer\":\"The authors explain they want to address critical issues around the developers because their backgrounds informed the game’s creation, and one developer was accused of abusive behavior followed by suicide.\"}]","Getting through a Tough Day (Again) - What Possum Springs Says about Mental Health and Social Class | PDF",1792073183,63]