Game Flow has drawn inspiration from a variety of sources throughout the production process. These are just a very few of our favorite things from around the internet related to the power of gaming for mental health:

Research:

• Jane McGonigal’s body of research contains a wealth of information related to games and health, gaming for self-help, and the power of games for good more generally. Check out her amazing TEDTalk or her game SuperBetter to get started.

Media:

• Lindsay Grace’s op-ed, “Video games do not teach people to become shooters in real life,” effectively shuts down the argument that we’re all sick of having about games and violence. Also, he’s interviewed in our documentary!
• +7 Intelligence is an awesome podcast about how games impact people. There’s also an episode about Game Flow, featuring an interview with director/producer Emily Crawford.

Organizations:

• Geek Therapy “celebrates how Geek culture can save the world through podcasts, videos, blog posts, community outreach, education, and convention appearances.”
• TakeThis “Seeks to inform our community about mental health issues, to provide education about mental disorders and mental illness prevention, and to reduce the stigma of mental illness.” They have a robust database of stories, articles, and expert info related to mental health in the gaming community.
• The Bodhana Group “advocates the use of tabletop gaming as a directed therapeutic and clinical practice that can benefit personal growth as well as enhance social and educational services to individuals and families.”
• RPG Research has done some great work using roleplaying games of all kinds in educational and therapeutic settings.
• iThrive Games “works to benefit teens at the intersection of game development, education, and mental health.”

Games:

• Elude “aims to raise awareness for depression and to inform about this dangerous illness. It is specifically intended to be used in a clinical context as part of a psycho-education package to enhance friends’ and relatives’ understanding of people suffering from depression about what their loved ones are going through.” Play the game by Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab online here!