Road To Acceptance

Overview

Road to Acceptance is a gamified VR experience designed to support emotional awareness and empathy-building around grief. The players step into a fantasy world and take on the role of Eldevu, a bereaved husband who has destroyed the world in his grief. To restore it, players revisit the five stages of grief—Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance—through symbolic embodied mini-games. Rather than instructing or diagnosing, the experience invites reflection, emotional rehearsal, and compassionate understanding of grief as a nonlinear, deeply personal journey.

The game leverages Virtual Reality Perspective Taking (VRPT) in a fantasy narrative to foster connection and understanding between the user and the story by allowing players to step into the character’s emotional journey.

Project Details

My Role: Game Developer and Engineer, Level Designer, Narrative Designer, Technical Artist
Technologies / Methods: Unity, Shapr3D, Oculus Quest 2, DaVinci Resolve, Embodied Design for VR
Team: Thaís Alvarenga, Amina Kobenova, Piper Stickler, Ons Taktak, Sri Kurniawan (PI) 
Timeline: October 2021 - Ongoing

The Problem

Grief is a universal yet often stigmatized experience. Traditional grief education relies heavily on verbal communication and clinical models, which may not support people—especially neurodivergent youth—in expressing or recognizing complex emotions. Existing digital tools often over-simplify grief or fail to capture its embodied, cyclical, and relational nature. There is a need for emotionally safe, reflective, and interactive experiences that help people understand—not solve—grief.

The Solution

Road to Acceptance transforms grief education into an embodied narrative journey. Inspired by the Kübler-Ross model of grief, "Road to Acceptance" invites players to step into the shoes of Eldevu, a bereaved husband whose sorrow has led to the destruction of his world. The narrative unfolds through a series of mini-games, each representing a different stage of grief, allowing players to learn through embodied interaction. Instead of presenting grief as a linear diagnosis, the VR environment provides a space for players to freely explore the complexities and messiness of coping with loss.

Design Approach

The experience was developed using research through design. Through iterative making, we explore how VR affordances—agency, controlled exposure, and perspective-taking—can support emotional reflection.

The game employs Virtual Reality Perspective Taking (VRPT) as a key pedagogical tool. This approach enables players to immerse themselves fully in Eldevu's journey, deepening their understanding of his emotional state. The experience begins with an animated cutscene that sets the context, introducing Eldevu’s memories and motivations. Players navigate through the game by selecting teleportation gems to access various mini-games, each requiring them to engage with the emotional challenges of grief.

Interactive Gameplay and Emotional Engagement

Each grief stage is expressed through an interactive mechanic or mini-game. For instance, players may shatter glass containers during the anger stage or engage in exchanges with non-playable characters during bargaining. These embodied mechanics reduce ludonarrative dissonance, aligning emotional themes with physical interaction rather than abstract gameplay.

Nonlinear Navigation

Players choose their own path through the stages, mirroring the unpredictable, cyclical nature of real grief. This reinforces agency, a key element in therapeutic support. 

VR Perspective-Taking (VRPT)

Through voiceovers and interactive elements, the game encourages players to reflect on their actions, promoting cognitive empathy and emotional resonance. By embodying Eldevu, players not only witness but actively participate in the character’s emotional journey, facilitating a deeper understanding of grief’s non-linear nature.

Key Outcomes

• VR affordances: Expert evaluation confirmed that VR’s affordances—agency, controlled exposure, and perspective-taking—are meaningfully suited to grief awareness and emotional literacy.

• Emotionally symbolic interactions work: Experts noted that symbolic embodied experiences (e.g., shattering glass, restoring broken objects, returning gems) successfully created reflective and emotional engagement—without forcing catharsis.

  
  

• Nonlinearity supports authenticity: The nonlinear structure (self-chosen order of stages) was praised for reflecting real-world grief, which does not follow linear steps.

  
  

• Narrative immersion via VRPT was effective in helping users relate emotionally to Eldevu’s story, without prescribing what grief should feel like.

  
  

Impact

• For mental health practice: Experts identified strong potential for group therapy, psychoeducation, and bereavement support—particularly among neurodivergent youth—when used with facilitator guidance.

  
  

• As a learning tool: Road to Acceptance is not therapy. However, it can serve as an augmentation tool for emotional literacy and grief awareness.

  
  

• For game design research: It demonstrates how serious games can ethically approach grief without simplifying or solving it. Instead, they can be approached through reflective and symbolic design rather than prescriptive methods.

  
  

Reflection and Futures

Coping with loss is complex. It will not be solved by playing games or immersing in virtual stories—and neither is that the goal. Designing for grief means designing for ambiguity, safety, and emotional space. Future work will explore:

• Co-designed iterations with bereavement counselors and neurodivergent youth

• Tools for safe emotional pacing (exit points, gentle mechanics, adaptive difficulty)

• Cultural grief expressions (rituals, storytelling, material metaphors)

• Long-term evaluation of emotional literacy and group use in bereavement workshops

We seek to contribute this project to a growing and underexplored field of therapeutic gaming. Our aim is to inspire designs that hold space for many human experiences and voices.