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Trophies for Mental Health (Event)


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So, I recently finished Gris (thoughts in spoilers):

Spoiler

In this game, you play as a girl named Gris, and from the start of the game she's clearly struggling, walking slowly and falling down several times in the prologue.  As you go through the game, you'll face various things stopping you and getting in your way, like a heavy wind blowing that knocks you back, but you'll also learn various abilities to get past things (such as the "Heavy" ability, letting you break cracked ground and not get blown back by wind).


Turns out Gris is dealing with the loss of her mother and the grief from that. Losing a loved one is often tough to get through, and even without words, the game gets across a feeling that she's struggling and finds it hard, but still keeps moving forwards and sometimes find ways to deal with obstacles and ways to cope (represented by the new powers unlocked throughout the game), eventually moving on while keeping all the good memories of her mother with her. There will be occasionally be points of light (literal and metaphorical), and each finished level brings back a color to the world, but there will also be parts where things feel "darker" again, like getting attacked by shadow creatures like the giant bird and eel. Even if things might get better for a while, it's easy to fall back into negative feelings and depression and feel like everything's hopeless - which, on a broader scale, is also true for grief and depression in general, the latter which I can very much relate to myself. Still, for most of the game you keep moving upwards, trying to get through this.

 

Also, notably, singing is the last ability she gets, and doesn't get back before late in the game - if you press the "sing" button before this she'll just be struggling to make a sound and nothing will happen. The game's intro starts with her singing to a statue (the same statues representing her mother that can be seen throughout the game) and said statue breaking shortly after this - and her having trouble singing seems to imply singing now feels painful and traumatic for her. Managing to sing again late-game can be interpreted as her starting to get over this, something that takes a while.

 

Overall, I liked the game (even if the Eel trophy was kinda annoying)

 

 

As for the #YouAreNotAlone bonus badge (since it can be a game played before completing the first one)... I recently played and plated Evoland (consisting of both the original Evoland and Evoland 2), and Evoland 2 in particular would count for this, as the main character has 3 other characters (Fina, Menos and Velvet) join him throughout the story, and sometimes you'll have to use your partners' special abilities to progress (or get collectibles) - cutting thick vines, crushing large boulders, and freezing paths to cross water.

Edited by Zanreo
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Like many others for this event, Concrete Genie was my game of choice. I can see why it is a popular game given that it was free on ps plus not too long ago and how it relates to mental stress and dealing with mental health. 

 

Spoiler

I'm probably going to echo a lot of other peoples comments, but that's okay the more people that talk about these issues the better. Concrete Genie focuses on a teenager named Ash who is being bullied by a group of other teens. This causes Ash a great deal of fear, depression, and stress. He copes with these feelings by escaping through his art, and creating genies which could be seen as imaginary friends. With the help of the genies he fights of the darkness in his town. The darkness could be seen as a depression which he tries to fight off, not just for him but for everyone in the town including his bullies. His bullies also deal with stress and depression based on events happening in their home lives. They deal with their stress by bullying Ash which is an unhealthy way of dealing with it. Towards the end of the game, Ash has to save the bullies from the darkness and they feel bad about the way they had treated him and become friends with him. While being a relatively simple game, it's a good game for mental health awareness. I think it proves that everyone goes through some kind of stress, even people that make your life stressful like the bullies in Ash's case.

 

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I completed Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice a few days ago. The general synopsis will be listed as a spoiler. The game was based around the mental illness called Psychosis. I cannot deny I'm quite unfamiliar with Psychosis, though I am familar with a similar mental illness called Schizophrenia (Schiz-o-phre-ni-a). Psychosis is simply a condition of the mind struggling to determine what is real and what is not real. Two classic examples of this is John Nash's vision of William Parcher in A Beautiful Mind and Van Gogh's A Starry Night 

Spoiler

The game focuses around Senua, a Norse woman who suffers from Psychosis, portrayed as darkness or a curse, since she was a young girl after witnessing her mother burned alive. Then suffering from her father's verbal and physical abuse until many years later when a man, named Dillion, ventured through, fell in love and left to return to his village. After this village was hit by a plague, she left for a year, thinking it was her curse that caused the plague. After seemingly defeated the darkness, she returned to find everyone dead and Dillion used as a Blood Eagle sacrifice to the Norse Gods. By the end of the game, Senua finally accepts her loss of her lover, banishes the darkness from her, and accepts the voices in her mind. 


As for #YouAreNotAlone, I've been replaying the Jak and Daxter series. I recently finished Jak 3, which follows protagonists Jak and Daxter on their journey to save their planet from the Dark Makers before it's too late. 

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I completed Concrete Genie last night. I will avoid spoilers for those who haven't played (who definitely should!!!), but this game was very good at highlighting themes such as bullying, depression, expression, and community. I found it very easy to identify, empathize, and relate with the main protagonist through their struggles with being bullied. I often found myself in introspection thinking back to my darker days, but was constantly refreshed by the triumphant nature of the story. Finding the things that bring us most comfort and happiness are the best ways to guide us out of our struggles. The genies, while creations of the protagonist, are adorable and insanely cute, and represent the best parts of friendship. I often found myself stopping in awe of how alive the genies felt and the emotions they displayed. Making a genie happy by painting a certain thing and seeing them light up in happiness or laughter reminded me of how important our friends and family are to us. I also thought the darkness plaguing the town acted as an excellent metaphor for depression/anxiety/etc., and the journey of the protagonist did an excellent job at highlighting a journey working through mental health challenges, from the highs and lows and everything in between. 

 

Also, completely separate, but my dad asked me what the story of this game was, and after telling him he said "Oh wow, that's a really nice story! They should make more games like that.", and I couldn't agree more. Games like this are incredibly empowering and do a great job of reiterating that #YouAreNotAlone, and having more such mainstream instances could prove very helpful for those (like myself) who have our own battles going on. 

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I recently completed Celeste and I’m not gonna say to much since it’s been talked about a ton but basically you play as this girl who deals with anxiety and depression and you try to reach the top of a mountain, I just really liked how realistic it was when she tried to say to her depression that she didn’t need it anymore and that it was stronger than it but it got very aggressive and showed that even when you feel like you’ve beaten it’s still there rather than trying to have this perfect ending with a perfect girl, it was just a really fun platformer that I highly recommend!

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In terms of my bonus game, I think both Spyro 2 and 3 would count for the companion aspect (which I completed earlier this month), as the entire game is played with your trusty dragonfly companion, Sparx. Thinking back on my time with the entire trilogy, I was always worried about my friend's well-being, as he served as the health indicator in the game. After my pal had helped me take some damage, I was always immediately worried about caring for him and getting him back to full strength. That may say something about my endlessly giving character (for better or worse haha), wanting to make sure those around me are always at their best and do anything I can for them, but I always appreciated knowing Sparx was by my side, which I think is a very sneaky way to emphasize the importance of our friends around us! 

 

Not only is this event an amazing way to promote awareness for some very important causes, but it also has gotten me to think a lot more about the games I am playing/have played. Too often I find myself playing a game to simply experience the A-Z of a story, but not often do I stop and think about the content and what it was trying to convey or the thematic story it truly told. Thank you for such an amazing event, and my first to participate in here on the site!

Edited by Im2Fast_4U
clarifying Spyro 2/3 already completed
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10 minutes ago, Im2Fast_4U said:

In terms of my bonus game, I think both Spyro 2 and 3 would count for the companion aspect, as the entire game is played with your trusty dragonfly companion, Sparx. Thinking back on my time with the entire trilogy, I was always worried about my friend's well-being, as he served as the health indicator in the game. After my pal had helped me take some damage, I was always immediately worried about caring for him and getting him back to full strength. That may say something about my endlessly giving character (for better or worse haha), wanting to make sure those around me are always at their best and do anything I can for them, but I always appreciated knowing Sparx was by my side, which I think is a very sneaky way to emphasize the importance of our friends around us! 

 

Not only is this event an amazing way to promote awareness for some very important causes, but it also has gotten me to think a lot more about the games I am playing/have played. Too often I find myself playing a game to simply experience the A-Z of a story, but not often do I stop and think about the content and what it was trying to convey or the thematic story it truly told. Thank you for such an amazing event, and my first to participate in here on the site!

Yeah, it was designed in mind to try and look at video games in a different perspective... Namely, what are the developers trying to portray here? Or how does this compare to real life? What should I be taking away from this moment?

 

I think a lot of people forget that video games can be a good medium to teach you new things or open your eyes to important subjects such as mental health. It's one of the reasons why I love games like Nier Automata so much. It made me look at video games in a new perspective, and I never realized how powerful of a medium it really can be.

 

And yes, Sparx is a perfect companion!

Edited by Beyondthegrave07
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I decided to play Summer in Mara. I just got the platinum now. The game is sort of a mixture of good for mental health and about mental wellness. The protagonist is processing the loss of a loved one while helping people around her. Many of the people she helps are dealing with challenges of their own such as low confidence, family issues, bullying, and more. There is also an aspect of the game where you find lost messages, many of which are about mental health and coping. The protagonist tries to help both with tasks and dealing with these mental health challenges. Meanwhile the protagonist is growing as well. What I learned from playing this game came near the end. I won’t give spoilers but the final “enemy” of the game sort of served as a metaphor, and I took away from it the importance of hope and a support network in the face of your inner critic. 

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I played Memoranda, a point-and-click adventure game with a gorgeous hand-drawn art style. The protagonist is a woman named... well, she can't really remember her name. She also suffers from insomnia and keeps seeing this grizzled old sailor who may or may not be real. The game is about her search to find her name and other long lost memories attached to it. The world is a magical place with talking anthropomorphic animals living alongside humans, and names are a physical thing that can be stolen.

 

There are a few games on PS4 that tackle dark mental issues like depression and grief. And while those games are important and playing them are good experiences to have, they're kinda downers, you know? I picked this game to play for this event because I wanted to play something lighter. This woman has amnesia, but it's a solvable problem just by finding a lost item. With a lot of mental illnesses there is no "cure", per say, just ways to mitigate the symptoms and learning to live fulfilling lives despite it. So it was kind of cathartic to play in this fictional world where its simplified into a problem that can be solved and finished, the end. A nice little escape from the harshness of reality.

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My entry was Into a Dream. 

 

On the surface, it is very apparent what this game is about. You are put into the head of a man who has clinical depression and it is your job to find to the real root for his problems.  This is a dream world though, so what is real, what is fantasy and what does he wish had happened. If you want to boil this game to one thing it is being open and able to communicate. Through out the game all the NPC’s want to help and listen, if only he would open himself enough to let them in. He judges himself so hard and he believes that is how everyone else would view him too if they knew the truth. Is the truth easy, no but it is better out than in. A greta game for this event and I wish everyone the best.

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