Can you master mental health issues with a video game?
I want to make a video game with the aim to help people that suffer from mental health issues like procrastination, self-doubt, stress, insecurities and anxiety through playing these levels that show how to deal with it. In addition, I want to raise the awareness of psychological health because people need to accept that these issues are common and not something that they only make up in their mind. Mental health problems are a growing public health concern. They are prevalent not just in the UK, but also around the world. It is estimated that 1 in 6 people in the past week experienced a common mental health problem1
“Unchained” will be a 2D-adventure game where you have to help the character to unchain itself from bad habits-chains like „procrastination“ „stress“ „uneasiness“ „self-doubt“ and what else keeps it from reaching its dreams. You have to solve riddles, make decisions and to finally conquer these enemies. While playing you will learn how to unleash your own abilities and to be finally free to do whatever you want.
For the sake of research, I played some other adventure games and solved some riddles. The concept of these could also be used for my own game. On the other hand, I downloaded some Apps that help to relax with music and watched some motivations videos and have read some self-care books.
I already investigated what methods out there against mental health issues like for self doubt writing a positive dairy or that it helps to keep moving if you suffer on procrastination. I also thought about the character design of mental health problems, how they are to conquer and what their level should look like. Now I’m working on a storyboard to clarify what will happen in detail.
Can you master mental health issues with a video game?
That is something to be worth to be investigated but what I already know is that games are a perfect fit to learn new things and to introduce new behaviour.
A game is a promised way of Multisensory Approach to Learning. People generally remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, and 50% of what they see and hear.” Combining the senses, therefore, is of benefit to students of all learning styles.”2 Under these conditions, a game would be a perfect fit because while you´re playing you uses most of your senses. You’re reading, watching, and hearing at the same time while playing.
The method to introduce a new behaviour while playing VR-Simulation or AR-Simulation is already used by the industry to teach new employees to manage company machines for their own safety or how to build products without slowing down the manufacturing process through. So what has the new employee to do? The player has to act on these new behaviour terms and to make decisions. After that decision the player need to get instant feedback if this was the right decision or not. For the right, the decision the player gets a reward to bake this new behaviour into his system. A wrong decision shows the consequences. “One great example would be the creation of a sales learning platform called Zombie Sales Apocalypse, which is being used by insurance and pharmaceutical companies”3
INTENTIONS FOR THE REST OF THE REPORT
I would like to explore how professionals are dealing with problems like these. I want to try the tips of the motivations videos and self-care books really can help with mental health problems. In Addition, I want to book an appointment with the school psychologist and to talk to them about these problems. I also want to try these company games and other mental health video games and extract what I can use for my own game. Afterwards, I will ask some people to play my game and tell me what they learnt and think about it.
1 https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-uk-and-worldwide
2 http://learnthroughexperience.org/blog/power-of-context-learning-through-senses/
3 https://elearningart.com/blog/gamification-tips-karl-kapp/-> https://karlkapp.wixsite.com/zombiesalesg
yousharknotpass
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
dededos
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind