​There is not a world where I would leave you.: Representing Adoption in Text-Based Gameplay

Abstract

Game studies, with its active reframing of subjecthood, can be combined with the identity-centric genre of the bildungsroman to intervene in regressive narratives of transnational adoption. To explore how the concerns of the bildungsroman might be subverted or even illuminated by transnational adoptees, I created a text-based video game in the form of a choose-your-own-adventure narrative to explore the often-neglected perspective of birthmothers. Geared toward young Chinese transnational adoptees with questions about their origins, the game invites the player to imaginatively inhabit the figure of the birthmother and thus seek out emotional closure through a speculative encounter. Through narrative techniques and the embodiment of gameplay, There is not a world where I would leave you. aims to foster empathy and understanding for both the adopted and their birth families.