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Humans Against Mortality

Using humor to normalize conversations about death

Death... it's a scary topic to talk about. In the United States, it's seen as something taboo to bring up, almost as if mentioning death summons it. However, avoiding this topic can lead us to be unprepared mentally and physically, adding more stress to the situation. 
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With this project, I wanted to facilitate conversations about death. To understand how death is perceived, I interviewed people with different backgrounds. To get a broad scope, I researched what would be considered extremes, such as cannibalistic tribes, cults, and people with terminal illnesses.​

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Lorena- Raised in Mexico

  1. Being hit with the death of someone close to us causes us to realize that death is inevitable.

  2. Many people tend to focus on the pain, which makes it difficult to talk about.

  3. The way the culture treats death also impacts how easy it is to talk about it.

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Eduardo Saucedo- Pastor

  1. Having to encounter death a lot more often does not take away the emotions when we experience it firsthand.

  2. Being able to have a belief system and spiritual assurance makes that idea of death a lot easier to cope with.

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Israel Huerta- Student

  1. It is part of life that isn’t negative it’s natural.

  2. Sometimes we focus on the actual death and not what happens after with our body.

  3. Although we think about death often we don’t really vocalize those thoughts.

From that, I gathered four main insights, the one I decided to focus on moving forward was trying to make conversations about death more inviting. 

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1. Factors such as practicality, culture, and religion impact what we do with human remains.

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2. There is a heavier focus on the spirituality of death rather than the physical reality.


3. Memories connect us to ones who have passed regardless of our beliefs.

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4. The cultural portrayal of death pushes people away rather than inviting them to talk about it.

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While sketching I went through different pivots from something more digital, to an experience, and ultimately a game: Humans Against Mortality.

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How the game works: There are three main cards: Prompt (Black), Answer (Grey), and Tie-Breaker (Red). 

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At the start of the game, everyone gets five answer cards, and the oldest player pulls a prompt card, to which everyone except the one who pulled the prompt card places what they believe is the funniest answer. Without knowing who put which card, the person who pulled the prompt card decides which is the most comic.

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If there are two competing for the funniest, then a prompt card is pulled, which forces them to answer a tough question about death. 

The person to the right of the oldest person pulls a prompt card and continues clockwise until one person wins five rounds.  

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For the packaging, I began with a coffin-shaped box but decided it was too on the nose, so I decided to create a box with a sliding lid that unveils what's underneath.

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Ultimately creating a game about death, based on humor, allows the users to return to this topic and slowly have conversations about death become normalized.

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About:

School project designed using Photoshop, SolidWorks, and Keyshot.

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