Never Forget: Elephant Simulator

Thinking about games with emotional mechanics, this came to me as an interesting way of distancing the player from the personal interaction and dialogue that might be particularly difficult. An elephant simulator!

Never Forget is a game designed to highlight some aspects of time, memory, and memorialization. It is a slow-paced game where the player controls and interacts with a herd of elephants as they live their lives. Four elements make up the crux of the thematic and design elements: 1) The basic life-cycle of the elephants which includes: feeding, drinking, traveling, excretion, sex, birth, nurturing, predation and death. 2) The emotional interactions between the elephants and with their environment. 3) A puzzle solving engine reminiscent of old item based adventure games. 4) A post-apocalyptic world. The core goal of the game is the creation of meaning by the player through acts of memorialization of the dead. These acts have a game-play value as well as an emotional one – serving as some kind of beacon.