Why is Mental Health Important?
Mental health is important at every stage of life—it influences the way you act, react and feel. The choices we make, the things we say and our resilience can be affected. But mental health also plays a part in our physical health. Stress can lead to higher risks of cardiovascular disease; depression could impact your likelihood of having strokes and many other health issues. Therefore, taking care of one’s mental health is non-negotiable.
Why Talking About Mental Health is Important
Albeit not as taboo as it once was, the discussion of mental health is obscured. It still is heavily stigmatised, particularly across generations that were raised in a world where they were largely told to “suck it up”. Disorders are a concern that affects the masses—it broadly ranges from common phobia to psychosis, and despite its universal nature, encouragements of seeking help are scarce.
However, it’s a topic that has been brought to light much more often in recent years—and this can be attributed to the efforts of individuals who have worked to bring more awareness to mental health, through discussions and representation in media!
A List of Five (5) Games that Depict the Struggles of Mental Disorder
Video games are a well-loved type of interactive media, that allows players to fully immerse themselves into the worlds built and the characters they control. Therefore, it’s a great medium to convey themes and messages that can stick to the unsuspecting.
The following video games involves main characters who are ailed with disorders, in which their experiences are manifested in physical—or virtual—forms. From roguelites to horror games, this list offers games of multiple genres, showing that mental health has a place in every space.
1. The Beginners Guide
Initial release date: October 1, 2015
Genre: Walking Simulator, Adventure, Indie
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, Mac operating systems
Developer: Everything Unlimited Ltd.
The beginner’s guide is a walking simulator, where players play through snippets of 18 games. Each instalment differs in environment, gameplay, and goal—if any. Instructions are given by an elusive narrator, Wreden, who directs players and provides snippets of context for the minigames presented. Initially, all we know is that they were developed by the narrator’s longtime friend, Coda. Explore, converse and solve puzzles—but players cannot die, akin to most walking sims.
Players are given small pieces of information about Coda, to deduce who he is and what drove him to create such abstract pieces—each space feeling devoid, following themes of isolation, incompletion and disordered communication. To avoid any major spoilers, we’ll stop here. Ultimately, this is a game about both Wren and Coda’s psyche and the emotional turmoil that plagues them.
2. Fran Bow
Initial release date: August 17, 2015
Genre: Adventure, Psychological Horror, Puzzle
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Android, PlayStation 4, macOS, Windows
Developer: Killmonday Games
Initially set in an asylum, Fran Bow follows a girl who had to watch her parents get murdered. It’s a psychological horror puzzle game, with levels that players have to solve by switching between two dimensions. This is done so by the medicine administered to Fran by her psychiatrist, which transforms the world into a morbid parallel of reality—a relatively unique gameplay element.
The titular character aims to reunite with her one and only friend, Mr. Midnight, the cat. The first chapter of the game ends with her escape, and from then on, the worlds she traverses only diverges further from what is considered normal. Fran Bow tells the story of a trauma-induced amnesiac, who simultaneously experiences schizophrenic hallucinations. Besides its beautiful art direction, unique storytelling and mechanics, the game reminds its players that children are never too young to struggle with mental disorder.
3. The Binding of Isaac
Initial release date: September 28, 2011
Genre: Roguelite, Action-Adventure, Shooter
Platforms: Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac operating systems
Developer: Edmund McMillen, Florian Himsl
This famed roguelite opens with a cutscene, of a mother and a child in their living room. Isaac’s mother then receives word from who she believes as God; this voice tells her that her son is evil and must be rid of. Isaac, in a panic, jumps into the basement of their house. The game begins, and the player must navigate across monster-ridden floors with nothing but Isaac’s tears, to defeat his mother. True to the genre, the gameplay includes randomly generated levels and permanent deaths.
The game does have meta progression, where new levels, stories, items, bosses and characters are unlocked as you complete the game numerous times. Some monsters and all unlocked characters resemble Isaac closely, and items and bosses are overt biblical allusions. The Binding of Isaac is a game that calls attention to religion-induced trauma, and hints to dissociative identity disorder (DID) as an after effect of said trauma.
4. Silent Hill 2
Initial release date: September 24, 2001
Genre: Survival Horror, Puzzle, Third-Person Shooter, Adventure
Platforms: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Xbox
Developers: Konami, Team Silent, Creature Labs, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
Silent Hill 2 is the second instalment of the largely influential video game series. It’s a horror game that doesn’t exploit mental illness for cheap jumpscares, and instead translates disorder into atmosphere, well-thought enemy designs and story. Players take control of James Sunderland in the town of Silent Hill to look for his wife. It’s a monster ridden place—yet gameplay does not centre around killing them, and instead it is driven by overcoming obstructions, finding keys and solving puzzles.
Monsters are a physical manifestation of the roaming people’s fears and trauma, and are essentially pieces of their own psyche. Take Angela, for example. She’s an 18-year-old girl that James stumbles across amidst his journey—and the pair continuously runs into a monster called Abstract Daddy. We learn that it isn’t a fear that belongs to James, but to Angela instead—the creature is an embodiment of her past trauma, indicative of the assault Angela was forced to face. Silent Hill reflects human grief, cope and the individual disorders of centric characters. Some may argue that it vilifies mental health by attributing them to monstrous entities—but it rather is representative of how disorder can force fragmented identities.
5. Sanitarium
Initial release date: 1998
Genre: Psychological Horror, Point & Click, Graphic Adventure Game
(Modern) Platforms: Android, Microsoft Windows, iOS
Developer: DreamForge Intertainment, DotEmu, Piko Interactive, Bleem.Net
Rather obviously, this isometric-perspective game is set in a sanitarium. It is an archaic word for a type of hospital, for long-staying patients. Players navigate through pointing and clicking, taking reign of an amnesiac named Max, who had newly awoken from a coma. You’ve been told that you were injured while trying to steal a doctor’s car, and from there on out you are on your own.
As the players descend past halls and floors, levels start to shift into different pieces of land. Max faces different antagonistic monsters that belong to various genres—from sci-fi to historical fiction. Reality blends with imagination. This game blends art with disorder, namely the umbrella of psychosis, presenting a captivating world of a person who has been dealt an unfortunate deck of cards.
Overview
The topic of mental health and its disorders is a broad and complicated one, but the aforementioned array of games does its best to cover and interpret disorder without exploitation. This bleeding of mental health awareness into various media is important, because not everybody reads, not everyone watches, and some do not play. Conclusively, these developers have done their part in the discussions of mental health, in a medium that many partake in.
Author Bio
From Malaysia, Leia Emeera is a writer at TESSR, and a published author. She has been putting pen to paper ever since she learned how to, and has an anthology to her name, titled 'Ten'. Leia loves music, games and her beloved labrador retriever, George. She aims to further her studies in English Literature and Creative Writing the moment her gap year ends. 'Till then, you will find her sitting behind a desk, writing with TESSR.
Connect with her on LinkedIn: Leia Emeera
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