Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

Death in Games, Part 3: Grief, Memory, and Meaning (Episode 256)

• Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

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In the final part of our series on death in games, we shift from mechanics to meaning. We explore how modern games use grief, memory, and emotional pacing to create more honest depictions of loss than many linear stories can manage. From Spiritfarer and Edith Finch to Journey, Hellblade, and God of War, we look at how interactive storytelling allows players to pause, avoid, or confront difficult moments in their own time. This mirrors real-life grief far more closely than film or TV.

We also discuss the long-running trope of the “dead loved one” as narrative fuel, the rise of emotionally literate writing in games, and the growing recognition of games as a space people actively use to process bereavement. Finally, we talk about “digital ghosts” immortalised through save files, screenshots, and videos that become unexpected mementoes of who we once were. Can we digitally capture our souls this way?

A reflective, grounded conversation about how games help us face endings and why these virtual experiences stay with us long after we log off.

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Speaker:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. I'm your host for today. I'm Gem, and I'm here with my friends Alex and Matt. So before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our patron at patron.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

before we start, I wanted to give you a quick content warning because this episode includes discussion of death, grief, and loss. If that's not. For you today, then look after yourself and skip this episode.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

The idea of accepting the journey that you're on and accepting that death is a natural part of life, is something that the game you to think about. I haven't come across anything like it since.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

it's interesting to wonder about these as almost digital ghosts memorabilia of a time gone past my two main characters in World of Warcraft, probably no longer exist. And so they only exist in my screenshots and in my memory.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

I like being able to appreciate. The art of something like grief and death in gaming, I need to be careful what I let, properly into my soul, because I'm intensely empathetic. I'm like a suffering sponge.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

In our last episode on this, we, talked about death as a mechanic. And how death works in games from the sort of practical perspective as a gamer. But today we wanted. Delve into this topic a little more deeply and look at how games help us to face grief. Remember what's gone and make sense of endings so we're probably gonna talk a bit about Spirit Farer and Edith Finch, and explore how games turn loss into something which might help us navigate our way through, this inevitable part of the human condition. Firstly, I wanted to ask do you think that there are more games exploring grief and loss in emotional and mature ways?

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

It is an interesting question when you think about the history of gaming, most games were, limited by, the technology as to the stories they could tell. As technology for gaming has evolved and games have become more cinematic there's been more scope to tell stories that bring up topics like death and grief and loss in a more nuanced way that tells a story. It's an interesting one to think about because there probably are games from start of gaming that perhaps touch on, on, on those ideas, but I can't bring one to mind. That's solely about, managing grief and loss. Death happens in a lot of games as we know. And then we discussed this in the sort of first half, like about when your character dies or when your character kills lots of enemies and things like that. That was very common within the gaming world, the processing of the human emotion of grief is a more modern development within, The gaming landscape, I dunno how you feel now it.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

I think that. It is part of the latest generation of adults where therapy is far

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm-hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

Emotional awareness and intelligence is more commonly accepted and understood. That is mostly good, but it can lead to some. Dreadful therapy session kind of writing. And then I realized that it wasn't my fault that he died. It was outta my control. And I've blamed myself for this entire time. They say the lines that go, ah, yes, this is our emotional crescendo where they realize it wasn't, the bad guys, the true enemies ourselves. And it's very easy to fall into that trap of, talking about the thing than showing you the thing and you interpreting it and coming to conclusions about the raw thing that is presented in front of you. And then can have your philosophical conversations about that, which is all you can do with death really. You can't argue your way out of it. It's just there, and people have been arguing about it forever games like the Last of Us, part two a death is the, the cause, the foundation of a character's behavior the game. And when we have to go. Is that good Is it bad? Is it right? Is it wrong? And there isn't a right answer to that. Death in the latest God of war, even all the God of war games actually is from, it's a retos, is family dying

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Property.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

series? So that was his. Response of violence and anger, then his wife dying in the first one, and the journey through grief of going to the top of the mountain, going on a journey in response to a death. Then there's Freya who gets wrapped up in vengeance and rage so those are more extreme ways of death. A really interesting that I am, excited to see what happens with is, Brock and

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

'cause sin Sry is a wonderful like you could write him off as quite a minor side character, but the intensity of. His little bits when he's talking about can't be alone

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

he needs Brock and there's a fabulous bit where he goes down to find the ring it's really strange'cause the camera just zooms in on his face and he goes all the way down this mine shaft into the darkness and the light starts flickering and he winds it out. And then he finds the ring and then he comes back up and joins the other people. after Brock dies, you see, that must be his experience of life. When he's alone and he can't bear being alone. And now that Brock's dead, it has broken out this really raw, unshaped, awfulness and pain that kind of death. Doesn't need to be put into words for it to be a really powerful, thing.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

That's.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

the best writing is done is where, situation is created and. It's more about what isn't said than what is said, and you need in order to write

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Twice.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

emotionally to unlock your potential of using death and grief and emotional impact. Having your emotional intelligence and variety is critical.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

you, it makes you a better writer. There are definitely more instances of writers death and as with most things, a few people do it excellently, but a lot of people are doing it well, and I think that's good progress.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah, I mean we've definitely seen an increase in games that are dealing with this topic. We'd struggle, I think, to count the number of games that are built on the idea of a dead wife or a dead daughter, or other loved one who as the. Motivating factor for the male protagonist. There's probably thousands of games that use that, even if the game itself doesn't overtly deal with the concept of grief and the emotional fallout of. Death that's still the motivator, the revenge, the anger, the frustration.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Quite a common trope within film and video games,

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

mm-hmm.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

using that kind of death as a plot device for the revenge mission or the motivator for male characters,

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

very common.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah, we've talked about it a couple of times, on the pod in the past. But yeah, we definitely have seen an increase in the topic being covered in games the death POS positivity wave. Where there was an increase in, dealing with the emotional process around death. There's also been studies into. How video games can help people process grief and work through grief. We saw a rise in gaming during the pandemic, which was. A time of grief and a time of death for, many of us. Or the fear of death. It was just all around us. And I think it is interesting that we've then seen this increase in games dealing with death talking about this topic sympathetically and sensitively, and we're also seeing an increase in people using games to work their way through this issue. Like spirit fairer where you are guiding, dead souls to the afterlife or, I'm playing, cozy grove at the moment, and that's all about a little girl who helps, ghost bears

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Oh,

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Find, peace, on a little island. And then you've got things like, what remains Edith Finch, where we look at the various deaths throughout her family. And, um, spoiler alert, ultimately her own demise how do we feel that those games are actually making grief a sort of interactive process? Are they making it, something that we play with rather than avoiding, what are your thoughts on that?

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

I think that as in life, the good games that centralize grief is that it's not a binary thing. You're not, someone dies and then you're in grief. Solidly in one state of mind for, even though it might feel like it's gonna go on forever, your going through a spectrum of experiences at all time and games like, say Hell Blade, example, one, and there's, again called banishes, which is made by the same people who make, vampire. And my mum and sister have been playing brothers. A Tale of Two Sons have you played that?

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

I haven't, but I've seen bits of it and know what it's about.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

Yeah. That I only know about the ending, but it turns out there's some pretty traumatic shit

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

it.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

But with each of these games, there'll be an awful, tragic moment then there's some gameplay where you solve a puzzle or you climb, you have to climb a tower, you have to talk to someone, and then something, you'd either be reminded of it or something new, tragic will happen. the mom drowns at the start. The dad. Is ill, there's, someone trying to kill themselves that you have to save. And so just these, these punctuations of grief, extreme grief is a punctuation And that's what life is. Doesn't matter how you're feeling, life is continuing. And what things like games help you do is go right. I don't need to deal with what I'm experiencing at the moment. It's still there, but it's to the side. I perform an activity, I go somewhere, I do something, I read something, I play something. then during that, or once you've stopped for a bit, that feeling can come back. And then you can deal with it for a bit and then you go somewhere, play something, do something'cause that's the only way to stay sane, really, is to, recognize that these things, they change. They don't last forever. You can, relax and not think about these things. Gaming is a perfect microcosm of gameplay versus the story elements not every second of gameplay, you're thinking about that so just another area where the experience of gaming can be applied to life in general.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

And that's something that games have, that movies don't have. When you're watching a movie, or you are reading a book, you have to follow the story through, and usually you will follow the grief through in a sort of linear style. Whereas with games, as you say, the sort of practicalities of the game. Story comes into play and as you say, that is more akin to how the real experience is for people, in the movies when somebody dies, it's like this major thing and everything stops and you know there's that scene in four weddings in a funeral where they do that amazingly beautiful poem and the stop all the clocks ones, and people use that all the time. Funerals and you know, it's a beautiful poem, but the reality is that that isn't what happens. Somebody who is hugely, precious to you can be taken away from you and everything just carries on and the world just goes on. And in some ways that can feel quite jarring I think it can make you feel quite angry at times because you feel like, the world should stop this. This big thing has happened and it should acknowledge it. And that's the lie that we're told by the movie world and computer games that people are, so quick to sort of say, has so little to do with reality, can actually represent the grieving process in a more honest way than many of these other medias that we engage with to understand this process.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

It's a matter of you being in charge of the pacing of

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

as well.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yes.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

in tv, in every other form of media, someone else has set out the trajectory of. the narrative. you are experiencing it in their structure.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

As often happened in clear, obscure something awful happened. And so I didn't carry on with the story for a long time. I just went and explored the world.'cause I like the way the world is

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

moment. I have no idea what's gonna happen when I do the next story bit. So I'm going to around in this game and just explore for a while try and do the impossible tower and defeat the purple lighthouse snake thing. Then I might finish that for a bit. Go and play another game. Do some other things, and then move on to the next bit when you are ready you can have a lovely time in a game without progressing the story, and that's so important

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

safe activities, enjoyable activities that you can go and just do for as long as you feel like, and that's something that games offer differently.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Especially in a game that has a very heavy storyline, that has these kind of very emotionally challenging moments it shows a understanding of. Humans really to put that in, to recognize the need for that emotional break. It reminds me of what you were saying last time, Alex, about when you lost your horse

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm. In Ghost of Oshima. yeah. I definitely didn't wanna carry on for a good day. I was just like, I can't, sorry, is gone. It's a very good game. But I was thinking actually while we've been talking. About journey, which came out quite some time ago now on the PlayStation three. Absolutely no, no dialogue in it whatsoever. So you're kind of piecing together your own narrative from the way you interpret what's going on and to this day remains, I think of my favorite games that I've ever played. I had a very emotional experience with it. it's on some levels, almost quite spiritual. I think it really deals with idea of of grief acceptance of the idea that we're all going to die. There's one part in particular you reach a sort of inner sanctum and you get shown all of these glyphs that you've discovered on the walls, you realize that what they're sharing. Is your journey from the beginning of the game up to the point you've reached now and then beyond to where you will ultimately finish it depicts it in a way where it's like, this is the journey that you are on. Sometimes people will join you and help you out. times you won't have people with you. it will get really challenging and hard. And it'll be a really difficult climb to the top right at the end, a real struggle, but at the end, there will be light and beauty. And I think it represented to a lot of people the idea of passing on or maybe even getting reborn, which is a strong message throughout the game as well. It moved me to tears. And at the time I was a lot younger. I can't remember exactly how old I was, but it's the first game I cried, sobbed, playing. I'd never had a, a such strong emotional reaction to essentially game with no words whatsoever in it. I'd I thought. This is the journey of life. I'm gonna get some help and I'm gonna do it, and we are gonna reach, reach the summit of that mountain. That's what we're actually aiming for. A lot of things kind of happened all at once. At the beginning of the game, you don't really know what the goal is. There's no quest, no text on the screen. You're just following these lovely sand ribbon creatures thinking, oh, isn't this nice? I wonder where they're going. You don't really have any idea that you, are in this sort of cyclical process of being born and dying over and over, I guess at that point you suddenly realize oh, this is the journey I'm on. I'm the one in the pictures here. It's sort of a big light bulb moment. And then you realize that the next thing you've got to do to try and climb the big mountain that you've been looking at the whole of the game how difficult that's going to be. But that second half. If the game is a lot colder and darker and it feels scarier, and more difficult because it's not bright and sunny anymore, it, seems like a real uphill battle and you start getting frozen. Your cloak that you used to fly gets frozen so you can't fly anymore. I think it almost represents the winter of your life. In a way it is very sort of seasonal in that way as well. There's so many layers to it. It's really a wonderful game. The amazing score by Austin Wintry, of course had a big part to play in triggering my emotions. If you sit and think about it, I'm sure there's many more layers that you could, unwrap while you're off playing journey. But I think. The idea of accepting the journey that you're on and accepting that death is a natural part of life, is something that the game you to think about. I haven't come across anything like it since.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

And they stay with you, don't they? Those kind of experiences and games, do you feel that it's helped to prepare you for those moments

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

I think it's definitely helped me to think when things are feeling like a real struggle or I'm in a particularly dark place, mentally I'll be like, this is just the winter part of journey. There'll be someone along to help out. I've gotta find those people and eventually. Make it out of the cult and keep going again and get up and keep trying. I don't think of it every time, but it is you know, in the back of my head, you've gotta take a step back and think things feel really terrible at the moment, but it will change. Like Matt was saying, there's always an ebb and flow. So I think it helps manage that.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Do you think that death in games means something different depending on the genre if you're looking at death in a narrative game, rogue likes or, I don't know, RPG style games, do you feel that death means something different in each of those games

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

I think it can do, it definitely paints a different picture in terms of the context. So something like a rogue, like, eternal for example, and I think there's a very similar one coming out soon, by the same developer called Ros, where essentially every time you come back stronger. And you keep everything that you collected on each run you basically level up your character the more you die, you become stronger and stronger. in that way, I think, could look at death as, a fresh up with extra, up like knowledge as you go and experience as you go. It's not a failure. It's something to keep building on. In that genre, it's definitely, more of a tool for getting through the game and beating the game.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

Mostly all of them use death as a fundamental game mechanic. You kill enemies and if they, either the way that they approach like perma death, stuff like narrative death stuff can be quite jarring. If done poorly if death is treated irreverently through the rest of it, in branching narrative games bold enough to let characters die permanently,

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

that's where it can be used. And games where it makes you feel the emotion of it. And again, God of War did a great of that with Fenrir dying at the opening moments of the first game and that being devastating. And then you kill manner of things throughout the rest of it. Those moments where it narrows it down, makes it far more interesting and it just feels like whether the game developers want or care to put that into their games. It's not always appropriate. It's not always fun because with me, I find. It's better for me to think about positive things it's far, far too easy for me to think about negative things. And then to think of an even more negative spin on them.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

I treat it as sort of like, I've got the, the things I think, the things I feel and the things I choose to believe

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

I love philosophizing about things I love art and I like being able to appreciate. The art of something like grief and death in gaming, I need to be careful what I let, properly into my soul, because I'm intensely empathetic. I'm like a suffering sponge. So it's, very easy for that external stuff to reach into me and sort of grab a hold of me. So it has taken a very long period of time, and it's still not perfect, but for a developer a writer or an artist of any kind. Art can be an excellent way to, extract some of those intense parts of yourself. The intense negative parts, and if you can get it out and onto a page or onto a screen, it's like you've created little cage for that. Part of it, you've extracted it and distilled it into this interpretation, and that little seed, can feel wonderful getting out of you. From the perspective of a writer or an artist. It feels fantastic when you write grief or death into your story, and it has a massive emotional impact on gamers because that is just like with music is when you see a, a crowd of people singing your song back at you. You go, all of these people have connected with that feeling.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

That's where art therapy is so incredibly useful. I think it was Dave Grohl from The Foo Fights, who said, that he like when, when he has tens of thousands of people singing his song back at him, he recognizes that each of them relates to something about him, but then their relationship with the song is different. Touches to be able to distill yourself into a small piece of art and then have lots of people not only see it and love it, but feel it, oh, that's the gold dust of creativity.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

There's so many thoughts that I had when you two have been talking about this and there's so many different tangents that I want to ping off into, but I'm going to be good and I'm going to stick to the questions, stick to the plan. So I wanted to take it slightly different, well not different, but sidestep from where we are, get a little less, serious perhaps. I'm just wondering about the idea of persistence and digital ghosts. When we game, we have save games for the most part. Or you might take screenshots effectively, photos of your characters. I used to take. Screenshots quite a lot when I was playing World of Warcraft and I have quite a few of my characters from that time. And it's interesting to wonder about these as almost digital ghosts memorabilia of a time gone past my two main characters in World of Warcraft, probably no longer exist. And so they only exist in my screenshots and in my memory. Do you like the idea of Digital ghosts

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

it's a really cool phrase. Did you come up

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

That's

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

It's very cool.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

did you

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah,

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

yeah.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

I dunno if I'm the only one who has, but Yeah.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

reminds me of, have you guys seen, or read iRobot.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

In that film where the guy, I can't remember his name, but he's like, there's always been ghosts in the machines. I love that line. That reminds me of that.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

Well,

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

yeah.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

a

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

It is an interesting concept I think for most men it's like you want to clear part of your browser history when you die, and

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

have the rest of you be your digital ghost. With gaming, I remember a post of a guy saying that his brother died and he played Skyrim a lot he still had the save file He could, just load up his brother's, save and just sit there with him for a bit. It was the last place his brother was and that's really sweet.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Oh.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Oh. that's lovely.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

personally, I've changed my relationship with mementos and just holding on to things in

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

I'm a bit of a, as with my thinking, I tend to hoard things. Uh, but then the more you do that, the more overwhelming the amount of things become,

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm-hmm.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

You lose the richness of them because all of a sudden they're just a folder on your computer

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

and a load of pictures that you never look at, but they're just there when. I prefer nowadays to go right, I'll remember the best bits of this. I'll remember the most important parts. And then, just the journey of it. I I've played. Spider-Man two, four times in the last two months. And of the entire first play through, I didn't realize that Miles can go invisible,

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Wow.

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

Which is kind of a core part of his game set. I've played it four times and there are tons of bits where I could tell you word for word and shot for shot, what happened. But there are so many other parts that I would struggle to remember to tell you, that doesn't matter to me because I have the impression, the way it made me feel. But the truth is that 99% of things that you keep in terms of notepads or images or whatever, doesn't improve your experience of the present and looking back on it that's my perspective personally.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

It is interesting to think about because in terms of screenshots and stuff, I don't have a bank of them saved. I have some videos saved via social media when we used to be able to directly share them to Facebook or Twitter when those memories come up, I get, back to, my life at that particular moment and how I felt playing that game. The most interesting thing about digital ghosts and memories is when I get reminded of games from. Much earlier times in our digital lives. Things on Windows 95. I see like a random video on the internet of like, or something silly like that, and it will have all the sound effects and like the music and like the way the window looked and how the mouse moved it conjures for me, my old childhood bedroom, the massive computer on the desk and the dial up internet. I connect a lot more to memories through sound.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Hmm.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

I find the sounds of old games you know, things like the sims, like the very first sims or like, did you ever play cats and babies? Stuff like that. Like silly games. Like that there were a couple of like m and SI talked about them, the educational ones that

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Mm-hmm.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

to buy from m and s. Stuff like that just reminds me of being. A little girl and playing with my sister on the computer then mom saying, I need to make a phone call. Can you get off the internet? Or whatever else. But it just very clearly conjuress a time when I was in a very different place in my life technology then was a real exciting thing to explore, to be able to do that independently. Without anyone supervising as well just like, especially within Encarter, it was basically,'cause I love to learn things. just like click around and learn things and hear excerpts of oral histories and speeches from President Kennedy or whatever else. Random stuff which isn't technically gaming, but it's the early explorations of technology that are really impactful. I think for me the memories of, how things evolved since then, but also how new everything felt as we were drawn into that digital age.'cause we are, we are very much, I think some of more than others, are, are kind of straddling the time before technology and the time after. Technology as we know it now. It's just really interesting to think about.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

It's sort of like a digital memory lane really, isn't it? I agree with you, Matt. I'm a terrible hoarder I feel like if I give them up, I'm going to suddenly lose my connection to those memories. But I don't actually think that is true, and I have lost things. I had, my computer hacked many years ago and I suspect it was a ransomware attack, which I spotted because I saw the files disappearing off my, off my, I just happened to be in the folder at the time, and so I switched my PC off. Which stopped the attack, but obviously I never got the ransom request. So I lost, photos of my daughter, from between the ages of four and. Six these were photos I'd taken with my digital camera, which I only used for special occasions and holiday photos I lost a load of work as well and all sorts of stuff, and it was really traumatic for years afterwards I found it really. Upsetting. I was like, I don't remember the photos that I've lost. I've lost the photos and I can't remember what they are. But I think what it did do eventually, once I got over that was I realized that the memories are still in my head. I don't need those photos. I still had those moments it is useful for me to have those screenshots there occasionally because looking at them does just help trigger that memory and go like, oh yeah, I remember that. I remember that time we did this. I do you think the idea of digital. Ghosts and memorabilia is just a really nice way to think about it. When I read a book and you stop reading, I always feel like everyone's just stopped in this position. And I feel the same about Mike. Game characters. I do feel like my characters that I played back in the day, I feel sort of sad that they've gone. I do feel like there's a bit of a death of my characters.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

It's funny, my uncle always used to make a joke when we were growing up playing the classic Tomb Raiders. I, wouldn't go beyond a certain level. And Martin would say, oh, Laura's been waiting two weeks. She's getting very cold in that cave in. Aren't you going to keep

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yeah.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Or there was like that really old, do you remember when, LA Croft had loads of Lucas aid adverts on TV

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Yes.

alex--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

There was a bit where the guy pauses and goes to the loo while it's paused, all the characters start moving around and like drinking lade and having a break and stuff. And then they have to get back into position when he comes back and unpause. But it just reminded me of that as well. Definitely. But yeah, he always used to make that joke. The game's not gonna play itself unless you, you get on, undo it. yeah, it's so, so strange to think about, isn't it?

mat-guest78_2_11-29-2025_150943:

Think that the best memory things are someone doing something that they enjoy, that that is a, a real reflection of their soul so that you can look back and go, ah, yes, that's a slice of them. Which is harder for photos and short videos. That's why stuff like having a podcast is perfect'cause we've got. 250 ish episodes of us really being ourselves and exploring things in the way that we really care about. You can learn a ton about us if you didn't know it, and tons of stuff if you do know us from this. And then also streaming games as well, my mum and my sister have streamed hundreds of hours now and that is forever for me, i'll remember exactly when they were playing it, where they were playing it, what was going on when we were playing it. so there's something about you can capture someone's soul, someone expressing themselves like that, in a fun and relaxed way. I think that is the best way to digital versions of people you care about.

jem--she-her-_2_11-29-2025_150944:

Absolutely. We've got so much more that we could talk about, but, we've run out of time. I'm sure we'll we're coming back to this topic again in the future, I want to leave it there because I felt like that was a really positive end to, an episode about such an emotive topic. I've got lots more to think about as always, so thank you both and we're at every Thursday, so if, you want to hear what we're talking about next time, check out our feeds on Thursday sometime, usually during the day we release something. Give us a follow and a like, that would be awesome. And share us with anyone you think who might be interested in these topics. Thank.