Gamification & Distraction Tools
From first hand experience, I know just how valuable a distraction tool can be in the midst of a particularly bad day, they can help you get your mind of the every worries even if for short while, allowing for you to calmly work through your anxieties. In times, they’ve even helped me come out from a panic attack, or prevented me from entering one. Two of my main distraction tools, simply because they’re usually within arms reach are videos and games. Through my smartphone, I can access a wide range of different content that can help distract and calm me down.
Although videos are helpful, these come with a limit due to the amount of watchable content there is that will help you – so I’d like to turn my attention to the gaming platform. Animal Crossing is a well known game created by Nintendo, since 2002 it has provided all sort of age groups a chance to briefly escape to a simple, friendly place that they can call their own.
It gives you the chance to create your own spaces, build new communities and find new friendships through it’s gameplay. It’s a game that doesn’t necessarily have an ‘end goal’ so the pressures of achievement are near enough erased, whoever you meet is certain to present you with simple kindness and an optimistic attitude. Knowing this – it’s no wonder that the game has been proven to help it’s users with their mental health.
Routines
https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-activity-planner
Escapism
Animal Crossing is just one type of game that can be used as a healthy distraction tool, other people prefer a less personalised game and will opt for something different such as puzzle games – here’s a few examples > 25 Games People With Depression Play at Night
Games For Change
Elude
Life is a never-ending struggle, full of rising and falling moods. Elude mirrors this struggle against the rising tide of depression, and the search for a path to happiness
Elude is a game created by Gambit to raise awareness on depression, it does this by finding ways to ‘mirror’ the emotional journey one with depression may go through. Using different levels to represent feelings, you only have one task – to try and reach a safe ground.
Throughout this game there are birds which you can call out to for assistance, the creators of this game have said that these are used to represent passion. “The core gameplay (i.e. “normal mood”) happens in a forest filled with “passion” objects that resonate and act as power ups when one calls out to them. ” This is a fantastic representation of how even the smallest of helps can stop someone with depression ‘stay above water’ and help them achieve a better day.
This is a short game, with only two endings, which I’m aware of. At the end of the game you are dragged back below to the depths, which I can only assume are to represent the lowest emotions of depression. The main character is left with only one option, to walk downhill. As you continue walking you begin to see red and scary noises begin to emerge from the depths. At the very on of the hill, you are left with two options; to walk back up the hill to the light or to allow yourself to fall into the red abyss. Clearly, the red abyss is there to represent those unfortunate cases where we lose someone to depression, and the alternate is when they choose to live and continue to battle their illness.
Although this game wasn’t necessarily created to directly help those that are suffering with depression – I feel this is a brilliant way to draw attention and empathy to the illness. Friends and family that support depressives usually struggle to understand the illness due to its internalised nature. Elude works to combat this by providing visual representations to try and communicate the struggles that their friend of family member may be going through – showing the brutality of what is going on when the depressive is experiencing one of their worse days and then showing how a small act can make a lot of difference to their recovery process is extremely helpful.
Gambit have made several games that also work to raise awareness on different issues, here’s an example of how they’ve used a game to bring attention to the struggles of the LGBT+ community – A Closed Word
My Idea
After my research, it became clear that I wanted to created a game that could be used as a distraction tool for those that suffer with their mental health. However, I had to be careful to find the correct balance between having it as a distraction vs using it as a method of heavy escapism.
After speaking with a few close friends that suffer with anxiety, a lot of the feedback I got was that a lot of the time when they’re feeling distressed, they’ll turn to puzzle games on their phone. This made a lot of sense, as not only does it work as a point of distraction, but it also keeps the brain occupied enough on another task, moving the energy that was previously set on worry, to problem solving. There is also a sense of achievement to be had once you’ve completed the task at hand, releasing endorphins and leaving you feeling generally better about yourself.
I wanted my game to be able to absorb it’s user enough so that they can take their mind away from worry, yet grounded enough so that it doesn’t lean towards unhealthy escapism. To do this, I kept my previous reference of Animal Crossing in mind. I had to make sure that my game didn’t have any anxiety features, such as a time limit, negative outcomes or triggering sounds – this crossed out anything that action related, that evolved having ‘lives’ of any kind and turn limit games, such as candy crush.
I came across a specific set of puzzle that require you to create the shape shown using one line only. Seeing as I already had a characteristic outcome in mind, this fit in nicely and I decided that I would use this as a path that had to be created for the main character.
Story Concept
As it was based around mental health, it seemed natural to embed this in a visual way too. So I came up with ‘Light The Path’ A game where you control a ghost (lil’light) with a torch through the woods, lighting up the way, to save a friend that had gotten lost. You must make your way to the friend in the woods using a one line path only, and you cannot overlap your lines as this will lead to the lights going out.
The concept of the game is that lil’light is feeling pretty hollow himself, hence him being a ghost, and he’s afraid of the dark (The dark being a nod towards the emotional gravity that is inflicted through mental illness). Both of the main characters form and the game’s surroundings are a subtle metaphor to how depression and other mental illnesses can fee. However, regardless of lil’lights fears, he goes into the woods to save his friends that had gotten lost.
Once lil’light makes his way to his friend, the entire environment switches to a much lighter, happier appearing atmosphere. This highlights the benefits and emotional gratification you can receive when you go out of your way to help someone in need.
Creative Process
I wanted to keep the games aesthetic as simple as possible to provide a sense of clarity and calm. Although the game starts of reasonably dark, I think by making sure the base is blue and adding glowed lights within the area it keeps the atmosphere light hearted and tranquil. All colours provide an overall neutral feel to the game and the styling isn’t too formal or informal which allows this game to be open to any audience, regardless of their age or gender.
To begin with, I wanted all users to feels like this app was a familiar place, to ensure this I thought it would be best to allow them to customise their name and I later brought in personalisation to the main character. To gather the emotional level of each user, there will be a feature that will pop up once a day to check on the users overall mood. If this is scored as low, they’ll be a pop up that makes them aware that there is some self help and contact information that has been provided to them in their inbox – however is the low mood persists 3 days or more another option will pop up asking if they’d like to be put in touch with a professional that could help. Although this game was originally made to be a distraction tool, I thought it would only be an additional benefit to be able to provide the users with some alternative resources that could help them in the long term.
There would be news custom items that can be unlocked the higher the user levels up, and at the end of each level the friend would say something heart warming. Giving the user a feeling of both achievement and community. All the noises within the game would be light and ‘cute’. During game play I would like all the music to be really soothing and slow with a few additional nature noises over the top, such as the crackle of fire during the title theme slide.
As well as the support features, there will also be a ‘community’ tab on the app. Here is where users can communicate using their logins or anonymously. By creating a space where like-minded people can meet, interact and share their stories and experiences I hope this would ease the feeling of loneliness that can come with mental health issues. As well as this, they could support one another by exchanging helpful tips or coping mechanisms that they find help themselves during low moments.
Alongside this, they will be a daily feed of ‘good news’ – every day we are shown all of the bad that is happening in the world through media everywhere, and as we’re more prone to remember negatives over positives, it sticks with us and creates new fears. The daily news feed will try to counteract these negative stories by showcasing all of the good that happens in the world, such as charitable events, kind acts and community projects.
Outcome & Reflection
Although this is only a base for the game, I think the concept already covers a lot of the basic needs begin creating a game like this. I’m happy with the outcome of it, I just wish I had the animation skill set to begin putting something else together to be able to really put across the type of atmosphere I’d like this game to create.
I’d like to spend some more time working out what type of information would be most beneficial to ensure that the support system would actually be useful and I would love to develop this concept into an actual app one day. Coding is something I’ll be looking further into, however as this game may require pretty in depth code skill, it’s likely that I would outsource the core development of the game through collaboration.
I think this type of game fills a hole in the gap of what is currently available for mental health support and that, if created, it would go on to help many people manage their struggles.
Sian Laüra 