Game Design for empathy

 Just read an article that's a postmortem on Journey. Really interesting, talking about game and level design to promote more empathetic behavior.

Most games simulate competition, and are power fantasies. Give players guns and limited resources and they'll be thinking "who can I dominate, I'm going to be strongest". Journey has no possessions, so no resources to compete over, and no arms on characters so no agency to push others for the sake of being rude.

In Journey, they designed environments to make the player feel small and a sense of awe. They believed this vulnerability made the players more empathetic to others, and more aware of how you are stronger with a partner.

They also talked about having no way to communicate with another player, that people projected missing loved ones onto their partner, helping them to grieve. 

The really interesting question was implied: "What would a game where you were given a med kit instead of a gun be like".   Like Hacksaw Ridge as a game. Or some kind of RTS where you are building robots to rescue people from an earthquake.