the world
a small town
the subenvironments
your room in a house/apartment
tree lined streets with houses, cats, birds, person every so often, cars parked.
central streets running through the town. houses interspersed with small businesses, more cars on the road, more people on the sidewalks.
business district. all businesses, restaurants, lots of people, lots of traffic.
outskirts with empty fields, train tracks and fences
aesthetics
the game is art, distinct visual style, richly wrought, with the potential for magnificent detail
game mechanics
first person. you can look down at your hands, feet, and at yourself in a mirror. it's an mmo type environment, richly detailed, one you can walk around in, walk about in the landscape, zoom in (look closer), zoom out (step further back), and have variables/npcs you can interact with. you can pick up and interact with movable objects.
the mental illnesses (eventually more, but to start with)
asperger's/autism
ptsd
schizophrenia
ocd
adhd
synesthesia
basic jist of what the game's about
every character has the same environment, same shops, same npcs, same side characters, same town layout.
the main draw of this game is that for each mental illness, the world is depicted differently.
there is a meter in a small dashboard area that keeps track of anxiety, and there are certain things you have to do in order to lessen the anxiety if the anxiety gets too high, the world starts to throb around you, turn more red, vision gets more blurry, environments get more hectic, until you do the necessary thing to return it back to normal. at all times you have to be aware of that stress meter
the npcs in the game react differently depending on which mental illness you have. if you don't make eye contact, their eyebrows scowl or they look at you as if you're weird. if you're not social enough, people start to pretend you don't exist. if you're walking on a sidewalk, someone's coming up to you, and because of your anxiety you walk to the other side of the street, they might say something hostile to you, or shake their head.
things to do
take walks
talk to people
go shopping at various types of stores
go to a restaurant
take a walk down main street
go to social events
go to the movies
go to a grocery store
go to the post office
go to a street fair
and so forth
examples of how the game depicts each mental illness
ocd
you walk to your door, attempt to leave your house. you're pulled back into the house, and things around you are heightened: things to be locked, things to be checked, and you keep trying to leave the house but you have to go back in and redo tasks a random number of times until you can finally leave. cracks in sidewalks are more visible, all the things that a person with ocd would notice are more visible, and the environments changes so that you're compulsively drawn to things.
aspergers/autism
sounds are louder. details are exceptionally vivid. patterns more evident, more math-like. people, the closer they get, take up more space, become louder. if you're in an environment with a certain amount of disorder, stress meter gets higher and higher until you enact some sense of order. flashes of visuals, coffee machine taking over mind, voices in chaos, people talking turns to gibberish, you can't understand anything anyone says to you. sensory overload happens the worse the disorder gets, or the more crowded it gets, and you have to do certain things to mitigate the anxiety: rock back and forth, flap your hands, tap tap tap tap, focus on patterns, or escape and find somewhere quiet
ptsd
cars backfire and your frame startles, get tense around the edges. stress meter goes up. closer you get to people on sidewalk, the larger, scarier and more threatening they become. stress meter goes through the roof unless you sit at the edges of rooms with your back to the wall. someone taps you on the shoulder from behind and frame jumps, stress meter shoots up. someone knocks on the door of your house and your viewframe startles, gets agitated around the periphery, and so forth.
adhd
vivid. scattered. all sorts of things jostling for viewpoint. need to multitask, and separate windows popup, side by side, of the various things you're doing to keep your mind distracted. you're doing something at the store, and vision bubbles keep popping up, ideas, distractions, ooh, something shiny, what was i thinking, it's more difficult to get things done, because the chain of events involved in actions have sections that deliberately loop and disorient the action needing to be done
how these effects are done
layout's the same for everyone, there's a basic environment with basic characters and npcs, with a randomness element thrown in for the npcs. for each mental illness, the basic environment gets different textures, audio is altered, shadows more dark, lights more bright, details more vivid, hyper realistic, surreal, and so forth
the way the player gets to experience each mental illness is through the stress meter, through how the npcs interact with them, and visual overlays of thoughts in the head trickling thru view, flashing warning signs, jostling of frame, visual overlay getting spliced, in graphic novel fashion, of the various details each mental illness insists on. it's never the same however, in that there's a degree of randomness.
additional option
you are a character seeing the world through the eyes of someone with a mental illness, but can divide your visual view into two side by sections: one in which you don't have the mental illness, one in which you do. giving you an extra special sense of just how different the mental illness viewpoint is from the neurotypical viewpoint
sandbox elements
i'd like to make the game so that it's modular, textures and skins can be modified, people can submit their own skins, audio clips, et al.
i'd like other people in the game to be able to type out things to say to others with the same mental illness: it's going to be okay, or, i know how freaky this must be, know that you're not alone
the real sandbox element: i'd like other people to be able to create their own environments to be placed in the town. a safe haven for someone with aspergers, a fun place with lots of distractions for someone with adhd, a calm environment for someone with ptsd, and so forth.
to start out with, i'd like to keep this single player, but possibly it could become multi-player in some indefinite future, if people wanted it that way
thoughts?
The idea sounds brilliant, but like CraigEllsworth said be careful with you portrayal these mental illnesses. For one thing autism/aspergers are on the same spectrum, but you will find that people with aspergers are highly functioning in comparison to someone with autism. There is actually a movement to separate the two in the DSM:V. Another thing is autism isn't considered a mental illness, but rather an intellectual disability. I'm not sure how important that distinction is, but I think it is important to point out that distinction. A game like this could really give people a window into just an ounce of what people with these problems endure, and I think that is constructive. The only real advice I have is accuracy is key in building the worlds you want to build. You are going to be working with a subject that is really touchy (touchy in different ways person to person) for a whole lot of people.
I lumped aspergers and autism together because I originally phrased it before editing: "on the autistic spectrum, ranging from high functioning aspergers to the lower functioning end of the scale." Or something like that. But then changed it due to, in the autistic spectrum community, some people taking offense at the label "high-functioning," as it can suggest that people with more difficult forms of autism are somehow less. And then there's the whole contentious topic about whether aspergers is a form of autism on a scale, or if they're separate things. Having read your comment, I think to start I'd take away autism, and just function on aspergers. Also, regarding the use of the word "mental illness." Yes, I'm with you in that some of the things I mentioned shouldn't be labelled as mental illness. Peoples' brains just work differently, it's all a matter of finding the optimum environment, where you can use your gifts, and good coping skills for things you struggle with. I used the phrase "mental illness" in the DSM-IV sense, kinda like how people looking for sex reassignment surgery have to (or had?) be diagnosed with a personality disorder in order to get the surgery. It's a fucked up way our society works. That said, in final form, I should probably phrase it differently. Maybe "explore the
DSM through the eyes of people diagnosed by it" or... Unsure. Something more positive, definitely. And yes, VERY touchy subject. I personally know people with schizophrenia, asperger's, autism, ADHD, and I would do my very best to have the way the "mental difference" is portrayed be based on feedback from people with actual diagnoses, to have it be vetted.
Adding to this, synesthesia is definitely not a mental illness. It would depend on exactly what sort it is, but as far as I am aware it is only very rarely even an inconvenience – Wikipedia describes it as a "neurological phenomenon", which seems about right.autism isn't considered a mental illness
Yep. "Mental illness" isn't what I really wanted to say, but I couldn't figure out any other way to explain the jist of my idea in a way that'd fit into the title of this post. Without labels, I'd want this game to be a way to experience the world through the eyes of people whose brains work differently, including color blindness, synesthesia, CAPD, menopause, etc. And maybe branch out to people with dementia, cerebral palsy, people in wheelchairs, and so forth. Just a matter of finding the right linguistic approach.
The first thing I thought of was this: (Loud sound warning) Be sure to do a thorough job researching precisely what it feels like to have those disorders, and get first-hand accounts if possible. I'm sure the last thing you'd want to do is offend someone with one of those disorders by misrepresenting it. Also, start small, by picking one disorder and sticking with it until it's perfect. I'd like to see the PTSD one, myself. I think that option might be able to deliver the most realistic experience for players, while making them feel like one with PTSD feels, without necessarily just getting frustrated by the game. I think that would be the easiest one for players to empathize with.
Yep, definitely be smarter to start smaller. PTSD would be a safe thing to focus on to start, and I agree with you that it'd be the most familiar to the widest array of users. And yes, as I mentioned in another comment, I'd be very, very careful, and would seek the input of people with the mental differences in question. I don't want to be me telling what it's like for everyone with, say, OCD. I want instead for these people to tell me directly. I'd seen that video before, and yes, definitely a good one, thanks for reminding me of it. If you're interested, here's another one, with a different style, this video being the catalyst that made me think about this worldbuilding idea, as I liked how the experience was portrayed, and it seemed something that'd be easy to implement in a game:
Comment saved, in case this becomes a thing. Thanks. edit: holy heck, just checked out your user page. You're interested in permaculture too? I spent a lot of work previously designing (idea, not implementation) a living community based on permaculture, skillsharing and barter, for people who want to live outside the system, march to their own drumbeat, for people whose brains work differently and don't fit into mainstream society very well. Ever thought of doing something like that?
'things to do' is way too limited. Why are you holding back? JD
I agree there's room for more activities in there, though it depends on the presentation of the game; games which are text based or visual novels would be very easy to add activities and environments to, but isometric or first/third person games which present more of the environment visually would require interactive scenery and animations putting a large hurdle on implementing activities. I think dashnhammit needs to consider how this world will be presented by this style, each has it's own strengths and weaknesses that would make it more or less suited. Currently I'm playing Therian Saga which has a nice blend of presentations including map-based and static-avatar dialogue, it's not going to become the WoW killer but it achieves what it sets out to do and presents a nice vivid world within its limitations.
Exactly. When I went for my walk thinking about this worldbuilding idea, I was continually thinking, ok, how would this be coded, what are the strings of logic, what would the database look like, what are the fundamental variables, how to make the world alterable without rewriting the base code, how to code action processes and be able to insert variables into the action strings to diversify the experience (like, for a person with ADHD), etc.
To keep it simple. Having my goal be this hugely complex planet with multiple societies, 90 levels or more of quest lines, dragons to slay, etc, would be nice, but I'd prefer to start with something very basic. Function first. Build upwards modularly. Also, another reason for focusing on average day to day activities in a town is because those things may seem boring to a neurotypical, but simply going to the store can actually feel like walking through a war zone, which is what I wanted the game to focus on.
Just curious, have you played Uncharted 3? The reason I ask is because of the LSD experience. JD