GAME DESIGN THERAPOETICS: AUTHORING THE COMPUTER GAME AUTOPATHOGRAPHY Authoring the Computer Game Autopathography SANDRA DANILOVIC Abstract In this paper, I discuss my arts-informed qualitative study and doctoral thesis on the self-healing resources of autopathographical game authorship. I mobilized the autopathography—the autobiographical illness and disability narrative—from literary theory, and organized an ethics- approved game jam in order to study the authorship processes of 13 professional game designers/ developers. Their experiences with bipolar disorder, anxiety, ADHD, color blindness, PTSD, shyness, grief, and insomnia would inform their design. My findings show that autopathographical game design during a game jam (AGD-AGJ) may be healing through its four therapeutic dimensions: autopoiesis (re-making the self through introspection), fabulopoiesis (re-imagining the self through the game narrative), logopoiesis (re-perceiving the self through implementation), and sociopoiesis (shared storytelling during a game jam). I offer insights into how gamemakers are pushing the boundaries of artistic experimentation in games while forging a novel creative method of self- care—autopathographical game authorship as an expressive form of design therapy. Introduction In this paper, I discuss my arts-informed qualitative study and doctoral thesis on the self-healing resources of autopathographical game authorship. I mobilized the “autopathography”— the autobiographical illness or disability narrative (Couser, 1997) from literary theory in order to study the experiences of 13 recruited game designers rendering their autopathographical narratives into computer games during a game jam, which I called the Autopathographical Game Jam. I argue that autopathographical game design (AGD) during an autopathographical game jam (AGJ) offers distinct therapeutic resources for game designers living with mental illness, emotional trauma, and disability. This study was informed by the emergence of autobiographical games exploring personal narratives of health and illness, such as Anna Anthropy’s Dys4ia (2012), an autobiographical account of undergoing hormone replacement therapy as a transgender woman; Zoë Quinn’s Depression Quest (2013), a text-based interactive narrative about living with depression; and Ryan and Amy Green and Josh Larson’s That Dragon, Cancer (2016), exploring the Greens’ grief over their young child’s death from cancer. The relatively new phenomenon of personal games about mental health has challenged the fundamental perception of games as playful entertainment. For example, the cultural perception of games as fun, escapist, and frivolous activities appears to be incongruous with the 218 MEANINGFUL PLAY PROCEEDINGS 2018