Living With Anxiety - GAD
Headphones are recommended!
This prototype is my final year project, which researched pedagogy techniques to transfer them into game mechanics, such as: storytelling, Aristotle’s structure to create suspense and relief, trial and error (multiple choice), intelligent agent (therapist messages) providing additional medical information.
Since the game handles a serious topic, it strictly follows 8 guidelines of how to portray mental health in games, such as including disclaimers, sources that can provide help, using appropriate language and avoiding stereotypes.
There is a quiz at the end for people to test their knowledge retention and understanding. The game was compared with a pamphlet (providing the same information) using the quiz and a user experience questionnaire; the results majorly favoured the game.
! Note: The lightning might appear odd due to some rendering issues of the lightning probe when switching from Windows to WebGL, but I am working on fixing it!
You can find more information and download the Windows version of the game here:
https://iasminaleagan.wixsite.com/portfolio/living-with-gad
Comments
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Very good idea. As a person having anxiety, it needs work to her journey with the issue.
Thank you so much!
[This comment contains mild spoilers for the game]
I really enjoyed this game (as much as you can enjoy playing a simulation of living with anxiety lol). There are some touches in it that I'm not sure are intentional or are just part of the game engine; looking around with the mouse can feel a bit dreamlike and I had trouble clicking on two of the objects I needed to complete my task because the cursor would constantly switch between the mouse pointer and the click finger, so it took a bit of frantic clicking to get it to work. If they're intentional they're great, if they're unintentional I say leave them in because they really add to the feeling of anxiety and trying to concentrate!
The part where you try to make the negative thoughts go away and some keep coming back anyway, or moving around, that was a nice touch.
The game gets its point across very well in a short period of time, a chunk of a person's day with no ending where they conquer it all - after all, this is only the beginning of Mary's journey. As a slice of life of someone who has anxiety it's a very good portrayal and I hope it can help others understand. Very good work :)
Thank you so much for your time and feedback! I never really expected people here to play it so this means so much to me! :) The mouse sprite change started as a bug, but you are right that it feeds into the game's idea, so I will think of a way to accentuate and make this idea clear.