If you’ve always wondered what it feels like to be cremated, this new Chinese game will help quell your curiosity. Aptly named ‘Samadi — 4D Experience of Death’, the death simulator relies on a creepy coffin, dramatic special effects and heat to accurately emulate cremation. The morbid game was launched at Window of the World theme park in Shanghai in September last year.
The game begins with participants taking part in a series of challenges to escape death. The losers are then asked to lie in a coffin and are transported through a fake funeral home incinerator. Once inside, death rites are simulated, and hot air (40˚C)and light projections are used to make them feel like they are being cremated. After the fake cremation, the participant see a womb projected on the ceiling. Then they need to crawl until they reach a soft, round, white, womb-like capsule that signifies rebirth.
Ding, along with his partner Huang Wei-ping, conducted extensive research before designing the death simulator. They studied the Chinese cremation process in detail, which almost 50 percent of the nation’s population opts for upon death. Believing that realism is a crucial factor in the game’s success, the duo even visited a crematorium and actually went through the furnace with the flames turned off.
“Ding went in the crematory first and it was stressful for me to observe from the outside,” Huang said. “The controller of the crematory was also very nervous; he usually just focuses on sending bodies in, but not on bringing them back out.” Huang himself said he simply couldn’t bear to be inside the furnace. “It was getting really hot. I couldn’t breathe and I thought my life was over,” he said.
Huang revealed that he has been interested in death ever since he went through a period of soul searching. “China made me rich, but it didn’t teach me how to live a rich life,” he said. “I was lost.” So he opted to study psychology and also volunteered a lot, after which he felt ‘saved’. Ding, on the other hand, tried to search for meaning in life by talking to experts on the subject.
“I invited ‘life masters’ from different religions and other fields to come and talk about what life is,” he said. “I did that for two years before realising that instead of sitting here and listening passively, I could also do something.” It wasn’t long before the duo came together to create the ‘4D Experience of Death’.
Throughout the course of their research, Huang and Ding found that very few people were comfortable with confronting the idea of death. They realised that this could be due to a lack of understanding, which makes the fear overwhelming. They also learned that many people spend their last moments on trivial thoughts and fake emotions, instead of appreciating the magnitude of life. So they came up with the idea for the death simulator to help people prepare for the ultimate experience.
The duo raised funds for their project through Chinese crowdfunding website Jue.so, and received over 410,000 yuan ($67,000) in just three months’ time. “It turns out many people in China are curious about death,” Huang said.
Now that the game is operational, Ding said they hope it will help promote ‘life education’, by encouraging people to ask questions about their lives. “There aren’t any model answers in life and death education, unlike those courses that teach you to be rich and successful,” said Huang. “It is more important for people to experience it personally.”
