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Mechanics as metaphor: representing physical disability and aging in video game mechanics

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Mechanics as metaphor: representing physical disability and aging in video game mechanics

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Content Mechanics as Metaphor: Representing Physical Disability and
Aging in Video Game Mechanics
by
Quentin Burley
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)
May 2024
Copyright © 2024 Quentin Burley

Table of Contents
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………iii
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….iv
Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Chapter 2: The Inspiration………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2
Chapter 3: Scaffolding Abilities Downward……………………………………………………………………………………….4
Chapter 4: The Power of the Fable………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7
Chapter 5: Respite Levels……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9
Chapter 6: Curiosity…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Chapter 7: Form and Content………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….15
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17
ii

List of Figures
1 Pig & Chikin Splash Art……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….3
2 Chikin Carries Pig………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….4
3 Fable Cutscene………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7
iii

Abstract
Video games often tell stories of empowerment and growth where the player character levels
up, gets stronger, and overcomes impossible odds. This is reflected in the game mechanics; the
simple act of jumping becomes a double jump and, eventually, the ability of flight. But these
stories of growth only tell half of the human experience. Bodies decline and our minds change
as we age or experience various challenges throughout life. This paper describes the research
in the development of Pig & Chikin, a video game where the core movement abilities of the
player character get weaker as the game progresses as a metaphorical representation of
physical disability and aging. This includes the game design of the core mechanics as well as
other key elements to the lived experience of physical disability and aging. In particular,
caretaking, respite care, and how we cope with the loss and diminishment of our physical
bodies.
iv

Chapter 1: Introduction
Most video games scaffold abilities upward by increasing the power of the player
character. First you can jump, then double-jump, and finally, you can fly. This system of
progression regularly appears in many genres of games from leveling up in role-playing
games, unlocking new abilities in a roguelike, to gaining more powerful cards in a deck
builder. Designing progression in this way is a tried and true system that eloquently
parallels our lived experiences: learning is scaffolded upwards in school, training in the arts
starts with the basics, and our bodies grow and get stronger from practice. But this does
come to an end. Eventually, bodies diminish in their abilities and our brains may be plagued
with confusion. And while video games predominantly tell stories of growth and
empowerment, this is just one half of the human experience. Gamers come in all shapes,
sizes, and ages today and we as creators must embrace the plethora of themes available to
us in our storytelling. This paper details the creative research of my master’s thesis project,
Pig & Chikin; a game where abilities get weaker as the game progresses as a metaphor for
aging and physical disability.
1

Chapter 2: The Inspiration
This project and creative research was inspired by a personal event in my family.
About three weeks before I began my graduate studies, my father suffered a severe spinal
cord injury that left him partially paralyzed from the neck down. His injury was incomplete,
which means his brain is still communicating with his body but in a severely limited way. In
a complete spinal cord injury, the connection between brain and body is fully severed and
there is no pathway for rehabilitation. But in an incomplete spinal cord injury like my
father’s, there are approximately eighteen months where the brain returns to a state of
neuroplasticity where it can remap connections from the brain to the muscles. This meant
that my father had a pathway for rehabilitation with the tantalizing goal of being able to
walk again. Sadly, his injury proved to be too severe and, nearly three years out from his
injury, his physical therapy is focused on maintaining his limited functionality and fighting
the ongoing atrophy of his muscles. He will never walk, feed himself, or scratch his nose
again.
For my family, this was, and continues to be, a difficult change to accept in our lives.
My mother is my father’s primary caregiver and works tirelessly at the age of sixty seven to
care for her quadriplegic husband who requires around the clock support. My siblings and I
have traveled to our childhood home as much as possible, trying to help care for my father
and relieve my mother. Similarly, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends have all stepped up
to support my family. This story is traumatic, but also, one of companionship and the
beauty of community.
My thesis project, Pig & Chikin, is a loving son’s creative outlet intended to grapple
with acceptance and an exploration into representing themes rarely seen in video games.
Pig & Chikin is a three dimensional (3D) platformer where the player character’s movement
2

abilities get weaker as a metaphor for aging and physical disability. The game tells the story
of Pig, a lively swine with wings, and her dear friend, Chikin, a grumpy and surly bird. In the
beginning of the game, Pig loses her wings in an accident and desperately wants them
back. Chikin joins her on a quest to get her wings back and learn how to fly again. He hops
on Pig’s back and acts as her wings. However, Chikin is old and his ability to lift and carry
Pig also gets weaker as the game progresses. In their hopes to learn how to fly again, Pig
and Chikin seek out characters like Heron, Penguin, and Bat. These characters,
unfortunately, cannot teach them how to fly but instead offer them insights into their
experiences and how they came to accept their bodies’ relationships to the world.
Pig’s situation is a metaphor for my father’s journey of attempted rehabilitation and
the eventual acceptance of a physical disability. Chikin’s companionship is a metaphor for
my mother’s support, as an aging caregiver who has limits of her own. The non playable
characters are inspired by the community of folks that have surrounded my family with
love by providing respite, perspective, and laughter.
Figure 1
Pig & Chikin Splash Art
3

Chapter 3: Scaffolding Abilities Downward
The game scaffolds abilities downward by making the player character’s core
movement abilities get progressively weaker in each level. In the first level, the player, as
Pig, can fly on their own with no constraint by flapping Pig’s wings. After the inciting
incident where Pig loses her wings, this flapping mechanic scaffolds down severely. Pig
loses her ability to fly and can only jump off the ground with her legs. The power and
freedom of flight is constrained down to walking slowly on the ground. In the second level,
Chikin offers his help and hops on Pig’s back. Chikin can lift Pig up by flapping his wings.
Functionally, this reduces the freedom of near unlimited flight to a triple jump and gliding
mechanic that are both constrained by a stamina resource. By the third level, Chikin has
aged and now his stamina only affords a double jump to the player. Finally, by the fourth
level, Chikin’s strength has diminished so much he can no longer lift Pig at all. This means
that at the end of the game, the player can only walk through the environment. The player
never regains movement abilities and instead the core theme of acceptance emerges.
Figure 2
Chikin Carries Pig
4

Obviously, this arc of reducing player powers rather than building them over time is
contrary to the expectations and experiences of most players. As in the latter half of our
lives, this arc of reducing player movement abilities has the intent to explore how we, as
players and people, can deal with and accept our reduced physical abilities, and focus
instead on the strength of our friends and family as emotional support systems. This design
concept was the initial hypothesis to explore. By creating this game, I attempted to answer
these questions: how do I create a game that is a metaphor for aging and physical
disability? How do I marry the formal idea of diminishing abilities with the narrative content
of building community?
As a 3D platformer, this game sits in a well-established design space stemming from
Super Mario 64 that helped establish this genre of play (Nintendo, 1996). This makes the
exploration of scaffolding abilities down as the game progresses extremely legible in video
game design. There are many ways to explore the idea of scaffolding abilities down instead
of up, but I chose to explore this in a 3D platformer. I’ve discovered that this was a wiser
decision than I initially understood. In playtesting, players did not struggle with what to do.
They intuitively knew the goal is to move forward and overcome obstacles. I believe this is
due to the game sitting so comfortably in the language of a 3D platformer. Players see a
ledge and try to jump up on it. As the game progresses, this fundamental task gets harder
and harder. The simplicity of platforming has made the game very easy to play, thus
affording the space to explore the deeper themes.
Furthermore, by centering the core loop on platforming, or simply moving through
the space, the metaphor for physical disability is salient and immediate. I’ve discovered that
the proposed game actually was a deep exploration into character controllers. The
character controller in a video game defines how the player can input actions; pressing ‘X’
to jump, the height of that jump, and how that action exists in relation to other actions by
5

the player are all aspects of the character controller. In Pig & Chikin, there are many states
of the character controller and some instances that are basically a different controller all
together. This maps quite elegantly to a spinal cord injury. The human brain is basically the
character controller of the body, and when the brain’s connection to the body–the spinal
cord–is damaged, the character controller is constrained. A physically disabled person can
try to move their leg, but if the connection is damaged, the input from synapses firing in
the brain will not produce a movement output in the muscles.
In a video game, the player is the brain, and the input mechanism afforded by the
character controller is the spinal cord that directs the digital body on screen. Changing the
player’s relationship to their onscreen avatar is a change in the control scheme that the
character controller affords. By making Pig & Chikin a platformer, it whittles down the
experience to this basic relationship of brain and body, or input and output.
6

Chapter 4: The Power of the Fable
Figure 3
Fable Cutscene
I have also found that the tone of storytelling, art, and music for Pig & Chikin is
extremely important. Pig & Chikin is modeled after fables. This was a decision made from
the beginning of the process to create a space that is safely away from direct
representation of the dark themes I aimed to explore. Fables can depict extremely dark
experiences of the human condition, but by framing them in short-form with personified
animals and flamboyant diction, they create a safe space of whimsy. Fables allow the
reader to come into the themes as much as they feel comfortable and understand a moral,
regardless of their personal experience.
While Pig & Chikin is extremely personal for me, the theme of aging and accepting
the diminishment of our bodies is universal. This game aims to be approachable for players
7

of all ages. However, players who have had personal experiences with the themes will
understand the game on a much deeper level, just like a fable read at the age of ten versus
at the age of sixty. A fable invites the audience in warmly and lets them leave with at least a
charming experience, and ideally, a profound one.
The safe space created by the fable has been invaluable to me as the creator and I
mean this in a day-to-day manner. The saturated colors, whimsical music, and humorous
dialogue between Pig’s snorts and Chikin’s clucks brought a smile to my face whenever I
would work on the game. All of these elements that make the game fable-like create a
space where dark themes can be explored in a safe manner. Creating artwork from a deeply
personal experience can be profound, but when doing so, one must tread carefully. Framing
this game as a fable has given me the space to create without triggering trauma within
myself or in my players. This process has opened my eyes to the power of fables and why
they are common across so many cultures.
8

Chapter 5: Respite Levels
Another key finding from this creative research was the importance and use of respite in
game design. Many games employ phases of gameplay that are less intense, or minigames
outside of the core loop, to give players a break from what they’ve been doing to that point. As
an example, Tower of Heaven utilizes this concept of respite quite successfully (Askiisoft, 2009).
In this game, players platform through two dimensional obstacles with severe rules that limit the
player. For instance, a rule for one level is that the player can only move left. Any misstep of the
rules results in a game over. However, speckled throughout the game are levels where all
constraints are lifted and the player can walk freely.
For Pig & Chikin this is also true, but in a more significant way that tracks metaphorically.
In caregiving for people with disabilities, respite care refers to a short timeframe where the
primary caregiver is relieved of their responsibilities. For instance, my father has spent time in a
nursing home for several days to afford my mother the chance to attend a family wedding.
The design team began using the phrase ‘respite level’ to refer to two key scenes in the
game. The first is a dream sequence where Pig has her wings again and is flying high above the
cloudline. She breaks through the atmosphere and flies into outer space before a gigantic
Chikin wakes her up. In this level, the character controller is heavily constrained. Instead of full
three dimensional movement, the player is constantly moving forward and the camera is locked
directly behind Pig. The only thing the player can do is a single input to flap her wings. This is an
instance where the character controller is extremely constrained but as a means of respite for
the player as opposed to an obstacle. The player gets a break from functioning as Pig’s
caregiver and is forced to slow down and simply read the dramatic monologue of Pig’s inner
thoughts.
This dream scene was inspired by respite care, but also by two real conversations I’ve
had. I once asked my father if he dreamt of walking. He laughed and said that he dreams of
9

golfing. In his dreams, he is able bodied. I wonder if one day he will be quadriplegic in his
dreams.
The other conversation was between my father and my six year old nephew, Jasper. Like
many six year olds, Jasper is obsessed with astronauts and outer space. He told my dad, his
grandfather, that when he grows up he was going to become an astronaut and take my dad into
outer space. Once there, my father would float right up and out of his wheelchair since there
was no gravity. “And it won’t matter anymore!” Jasper said excitedly.
The development of the dream scene was important to me because of these
inspirations, but was very much on the chopping block during our production as a potential
scene that might be out of scope. However, playtesting this scene and identifying it as respite
for the player made me realize it is fundamental to the game and metaphor. Players need space
away from the core loop of platforming; particularly when the ability to platform gets more
frustrating as the game progresses. And metaphorically, respite is fundamental and absolutely
necessary in caregiving. And so, we prioritized this respite scene higher than it might have been
in a typical production because of its criticality to the main theme and relationship of mechanics
to that theme.
The second respite level in Pig & Chikin is a sort of ski slope level immediately following
Pig and Chikin’s meeting with Penguin. Pig and Chikin hop on Penguin’s broad back and they
sled down an icy slope together. Pig is having real fun for the first time in a while, Chikin is
panicking, and Penguin is laughing at the two of them. This level constrains the character
controller again by locking the camera behind the trio and limiting inputs to sledding side to side.
For the player, it is simple fun with their only goal being to hit ramps and enjoy the rush of
sledding that Pig likens to the thrill of flight.
Penguin and the ice slope level is inspired by my brother. Before my father’s accident,
my brother, my father, and I would go on a golf trip every year together. This yearly golf event
takes place in my father’s hometown and many of his lifelong friends participate with their sons.
10

While I’ve never enjoyed golfing, I always recognized the opportunity to spend time together.
The year following my father’s accident, my brother took my father to that golf outing. They
called me while there, and the sound of my father’s voice startled me. It was his old voice. The
one from before. Inspired by this experience, I wanted the ice slope scene to give the sense that
for a brief moment, Pig was herself again and having fun thanks to Penguin.
Respite, for caregivers, disabled folks, and players, is necessary and a useful tool in our
journeys to find understanding, perspective, and acceptance.
11

Chapter 6: Curiosity
All of these methods outlined above strive to maintain the player’s interest while they are
fundamentally getting weaker in the game. But the primary method to maintain player interest
and the discovery this creative research has uncovered is that in Pig & Chikin, and in life, the
participant must stay curious about the world. Our bodies may not be able to engage with the
environment the way it used to, but if we allow our interests to shift, our lens to focus elsewhere,
and engage with the world in new ways, we can always find wonder.
In tangible game design ideas, Pig & Chikin changes the gameplay in each level, forcing
the player to stay in a state of learning. The only constant in the game is the fact that you are
getting weaker in your physical ability to move. Otherwise, the game teaches the player
something new in every level. This is an attempt to enforce a heuristic of maintaining curiosity in
the player.
In most platforming games, the player initially learns the rules and mechanics and as the
game progresses their skill in those mechanics strengthens. Well-designed challenges that
scaffold appropriately with the skill curve of the player create the infamous flow state we game
designers strive to provide for our players. In Pig & Chikin, flow state is fleeting and instead, the
player scaffolds upwards in their learning and acceptance. The increasing difficulty of the game
comes from the required learning of a constantly changing character controller and ruleset. This
has manifested in a progression of learning stages in the game. First the player must learn to
adapt to the movement constraints with the aid of Chikin. Then they must learn a new way of
using their limited movement abilities to solve a platforming puzzle. And finally, they must learn
to navigate the world differently by engaging their sense of hearing through the aid of Bat.
These changes in the game encourage the player, and Pig, to accept the support of Pig’s
community.
12

In the beginning of the game, the player learns in a classic tutorial style how to move
around, control the camera, and flap Pig’s wings. The player is engaged like they are at the
beginning of any game and they tap into a flow state before the inciting incident makes their
briefly developed skill in flight irrelevant. In the following level, the player must re-learn their
basic movement in how they flap their wings to produce a jump with Chikin on Pig’s back. They
also must learn to navigate the stamina constraints that did not exist previously. The player
learns to be deliberate in their movements by jumping on bouncy mushrooms to get them to
their goal. They also must learn to be precious with their stamina. If Pig and Chikin are airborne
and the player exhausts all of Chikin’s stamina, a ground pound occurs that plummets the player
character directly downward. This negative feedback cuts off all momentum both in the physics
and the player’s flow state by punishing the player for expending too much stamina. This ground
pound can also be performed deliberately on a bouncy mushroom to increase the height of the
bounce, an example of learning to leverage their limited movement abilities.
After this level, Pig and Chikin venture north to see Penguin. In this arctic level, the
flapping mechanic has gotten weaker due to Chikin’s age and more importantly, there are
slippery ice surfaces everywhere. While the player must come to terms with the frustrating
diminishment of their flapping stamina, they must also learn how to navigate this new challenge.
However, it is precisely their movement abilities that is the key to the puzzle. The ground pound
that was primarily negative before, now is a useful way to maintain control of Pig and Chikin.
The player must figure out that they need to deliberately ground pound in order to cut off
momentum and control their positioning on the slippery ice. The player must learn to utilize the
movement abilities they have in order to succeed.
Finally, when Chikin’s stamina has scaffolded down to its lowest level and he can barely
lift Pig at all, the player finds themself in a dark cave. In the darkness, a squeak is heard from
Bat. She offers to guide Pig and Chikin out of her dark cave by listening to the sound of her
voice. This level forces the player to learn to listen and engage an entirely different part of their
13

faculties. The gameplay thus far has not been about sound or audio cues at all and now, with
sight taken away, and flapping in its weakest state, the game forces the player to engage with a
mechanic that was there all along—listening. By refocusing the player's attention away from
movement based platforming and instead focusing them into the action of listening, the game
maintains interest.
This parallels the real world experience of physical disability. Speaking from my personal
experience with my quadriplegic father, the first two stages are clear. The last stage is where my
argument begins. If the procedural nature of games create a persuasive argument (Bogost,
2010), I argue that life can continue its beauty if you allow yourself to witness the world in ways
you haven’t before—regardless of age or the state of one’s body. If we maintain curiosity in life
and find intrigue in the world around us we can continue to be happy and live fully despite the
inevitability of our declining bodies.
For my father, he had to come to terms with the reality of his movement ability changing.
Then he had to re-learn how to use his body, but in a different way. Holding a fork and bringing it
to his mouth became a puzzle that he has yet to figure out. And finally, my father now engages
in activities he did not previously that are within the scope of his available senses. He has
become more interested in sound. We used to listen to music while sitting on the back patio
over a glass of scotch. His picks were always the same; Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and Ry
Cooder. Now he doesn’t enjoy the music as much because he loves the sounds of the birds. He
can identify the various bird chirps in my childhood home’s backyard. I hope my father continues
to find new ways to engage his mind; be it writing, singing, painting and embracing his
movement constraints on a canvas, or playing games with excellent accessibility features. But
these are the hopes of a loving son and in reality, the recovery from becoming quadriplegic is
long, arduous, and predominantly a mental health battle. For now, I’ll take his fascination with
the chirping in the oak tree and the rustling beneath the rhododendron bush.
14

Chapter 7: Form and Content
The core theme of Pig & Chikin is acceptance. Acceptance of change, inevitability, and
that some things will never be regained. Pig must accept that she will never fly again and Chikin
must accept his diminishing ability to care for Pig. Pig & Chikin is packaged in a fable with
charming characters, silly puns, whimsical music, and straightforward gameplay. But meanwhile,
dark themes simmer underneath the surface, the character controller is constantly changing,
platforming can be frustrating, and the quest of flying again fails for our heroes. Artists, and
people, have always worked through pain by dynamically shifting between tears and laughter.
The idea of Pig & Chikin inspires hope, whimsy, and adventure. It's one of those tragic stories
where the audience is grateful for a good cry when the credits roll. A stark contrast to the reality
of confronting quadriplegia. These two states of happiness and fear, sitting comfortably together,
is true acceptance.
Pig & Chikin offers an articulate design example of how lived experiences regarding
aging and physical disability can be represented in game mechanics. Through this exploration,
my goal has been to illustrate how a game can formally integrate interactive elements into the
narrative content of a game. We have games that engage in this marriage between form and
content, but we are behind the other art forms and it is time we explore the affordances of
interactive media to tell stories of our aging process as articulately as we have explored stories
of our youthful growth process.
Pig & Chikin utilizes these traumatic and personal experiences and transfers them into a
video game about animals navigating their world together. Third person platforming is
fundamentally about traversal and movement of an onscreen body. But often, the actual verbs of
platforming games, jump, walk, and run, don’t have much to do with the narrative content of the
game. The verbs are a means to the ends, not the ends in and of themselves. In Pig & Chikin,
navigating and understanding the verbs precisely mirrors the narrative of accepting the change
15

in our physical bodies. The formal mechanics of the interaction and the narrative content are in
unison. Pig & Chikin is a 3D platformer. It is fundamentally about moving through the world by
negotiating the changing ability of the moving body. Narratively, it is about learning to navigate
the world in a changing body. The formal design and narrative content is aligned. The means
are an exploration of the ends.
Video games and other forms of interactive media can take this deeper than was
explored in my project. To activate experience goals on a deep level, we must design
interactions that map to our narrative content. But as an artform, the unique, beautiful, and
amazing thing that interactive media has to offer is this fundamental connection between form
and content. Pig & Chikin is an attempt in this direction and hopefully inspires more artists to
engage fully in the affordances of our field.
16

Bibliography
Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge (Mass.)
Etc., Mit Press, 2007.
Super Mario 64. Nintendo, 1996. Nintendo 64 game.
Tower of Heaven. Askiisoft, 2009. Microsoft Windows game.
17

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Asset Metadata

Creator Burley, Quentin (author)

Core Title Mechanics as metaphor: representing physical disability and aging in video game mechanics

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 05/03/2024

Defense Date 05/01/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag core loop,Disability,fable,game,OAI-PMH Harvest,physical disability,platformer,platforming,respite,respite care,Video

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Nealen, Andy (committee chair), Bolas, Mark (committee member), Huntley, Jim (committee member)

Creator Email qburley@usc.edu,qjburley@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113920162

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