Newbie

I am glad to see you come visit our community. I also love to see board games used to help teach real world skills and concepts.

what concepts are you thinking of bringing forward with your game idea?
would the game designer need to be in nursing or would you be able to provide that expertise?

It sounds very exciting! I hope you can connect with us here and make your game a reality!

Let me know if i can help.

John

I am assume you are talking about DABDA here (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance)...if so, then the mechanics would probably support the things you need to move through the phases. My gut reaction would be to treat the phases like areas of the game board or stages on the playing track. For example, perhaps you need to collect enough evidence or test result cards to prove, in fact, that this is happening so you can move to the anger phase. Maybe the depression phase could be an endless loop that can't be escaped until the players find a key or some similar thing that would allow them to get into the next phase (something to live for?)

As a brainstorming exercise, it might be helpful to use the phases as topics and just starting writing down everything you can think of related to the phase; what is an angry person like? when do you realize you can't bargain with fate? what makes a person finally get out of the rut and move on? How much evidence does it take to convince someone of the truth?

From a theme standpoint, you could probably get away with the "stages of grief" theme in an educational setting, however expanding on your "voyage" idea might lead you to some cool themes with ships sailing into storms or travelling and becoming lost (space? the desert? a jungle?)

good luck with your design!