A journey through childhood grief: Sketchbook Games x Dr Caitlin Hitchcock

Mark Backler, founder and Creative Director at Sketchbook Games and Rihanna Pratchett, the game’s writer, worked with academic expert Dr Caitlin Hitchcock, a clinical psychologist and senior researcher at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge to create an authentic portrayal of childhood grief – and used what they learned about therapeutic techniques to shape the very structure of the game.

Caitlin says: ‘Mark approached me after he became aware of my research on memory and posttraumatic stress in young people. He felt that my research would provide a good scientific grounding for elements of the game.’

For Mark, the motivation to work with an academic expert – which Wellcome’s funding made possible – lay in his desire to ensure his game went beyond its narrative and had the potential to help people.

‘We like making narrative games that have a positive impact,’ he said. ‘We got lots of feedback on social media that said playing the game helped them deal with losing their loved one. It’s always very moving to hear that the game has made a difference.’

While Caitlin had worked with artists on spoken word pieces and short films, this was her first experience of collaborating with a games development company, but she says what drove her was the prospect of sharing her work with a new audience in a different way.

Mark says the main challenge was in navigating the uncertainty around how audiences would react to this alternative approach.

‘We had to ask, do people even want this kind of game?,’ he said. ‘For instance, the story and game mechanics support each other. You learn more by doing, which makes it a more powerful experience.’

For Caitlin, the challenges lay in ensuring her research was accurately represented without losing any of the enjoyable aspects of the game.

She says: ‘For example, following the experience of a traumatic event, individuals may have difficulty retrieving memories of specific events, which promotes poor mental health. Increasing the retrieval of specific event memories is related to improvement in mental health.

Mark adds: ‘It’s definitely worth doing because it gives you something to structure things about and a way to check things – the last thing you want is to make a game about a real world topic and then realise you’ve covered it in a way that would have a negative impact.’

Mark is now using a similar approach on his next game – and he is also drawing on the experiences of people with lived experience of mental health challenges.

He says: ‘Speaking with people with lived experience as well as researchers gives you the best chance of making a really powerful game and creating the best experience you can for players.’