this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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I want a game that is a standard sci fi/fantasy RPG, except the main characters each suffer from a mental health condition that affects their gameplay (and of course the story).
My brother (now deceased) had both schizophrenia and numerous personalities. He had visual and auditory hallucinations thanks to the schizophrenia. On top of that, in my last conversation with him, he mentioned that all his personalities ‘shared information’ except for one that was in denial. Because of that, when a different personality took over after that one, he would have no idea what happened during the time that denial personality was in control. Sadly, my brother passed after he had stopped taking medications for a week and decided to use computer duster (something he had finally got clean of) to sleep and never woke up.
Now, imagine that in a high sci fi or fantasy RPG. You might begin fighting and wasting energy on enemies who aren’t actually there, but you think they are. You can go into battle and no other party members will help because, as you find out after, those enemies weren’t really there. Maybe you become weak because of a would and have to get through a dangerous area to get to a hospital. There you find you never had an injury, it was a hallucination (based on a 911 call my brother made thinking he had slit his throat when he had not). Maybe you go to learn some key information from a character who then dies dies suddenly. However, you don’t remember any of it.
Most important though, in the end, you are still the hero and still save the day. The idea being that yes people with these mental health challenges struggle, but they aren’t monsters. My brother was one of the kindest people I know and loved to help people. A game like that, if done right, could help players understand what these conditions are actually like (not hollywoods bs) and show that they can still be heroes. I think that would be cool
You should play Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I've finished it and it's awesome. Wear headphones. It's on Gamepass if you have an Xbox.
Also has a vr mode. Super spooky.
One of the best VR games for the immersion factor.
You should check out Dead Space 3 co-op mode. It's basically what you described here.
I'm thinking about ways to implement other mental health conditions. Generally staying on the lower end of severity because I'm more familiar with it, but you could represent anger issues by having skill checks when other characters do seemingly innocuous things, and if you fail all the dialogue options are bad. ADHD could be done with a required mini game of correctly identifying all the steps in a process and having cooldowns between them to reflect executive disfunction. Hyperfocus could be implemented with certain objectives not being completeable, or even showing up in the game anywhere outside of dialogue, until one is. Seasonal affective disorder could be shown with a characters stats just drastically dropping when the seasons change, and the HUD colour scheme becoming more muted.
Vampire The Masquarade Bloodlines.
Pick the Malkevian clan.
You'll talk to stopsigns and be interrogated by your own TV.
So kind of like some of the simulations that exist to allow people a glimpse of what it is like to suffer from schizophrenia with audible and visual hallucinations, constant repetititious dialogue in your head etc, that I have seen videos of. I don't think they're widely available, but if someone made an actual fleshed out game with that, I agree it would be really cool. Unfortunately the stigma that still exists regarding mental illness would make it hard for anyone to really go for it, unless it was entirely indie.