The Pitch (part two)

Having established a solid idea for the possible game as a metroidvania style 2D platformer taking place within the human body with the player using the character of a vaccine and an emphasis of exploration being key I wanted to understand more so how I could change peoples lives with the game.

Above are previous illustrations for both posters and game covers when the game had the title of Morbidium.

Wanting to change peoples lives is a big ask, perhaps breaking it down into how creative media has affected others in the past is a better way to understand how this has occurred if at all and how it could be recreated within a game.

For me other creative media examples that have become more than their format by externally affecting and arguably changing peoples lives would be the graphic Novel "Maus".

Created by Art Spiegelman it shows the authors conversations with his father a Holocaust survivor and depicts the setting and events in a non realistic way to dissociate the atrocities that happened from humans, by representing Jews as mice and other Germans and Poles as cats and pigs before slowly through the course of the tale changing this anthropomorphism to just masks of mice and cats on people so the reader slowly understand the human element of the story.  This was the first ever graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize and has been highly regarded amongst critics with it been used as school reading materials and considered an important part of Holocaust literature with studies of it making significant contributions to Holocaust studies.

Another format that could be argued to have changed peoples lives is music, with plenty of people associating certain songs to periods of their own lives through implicit memory a form of self conditioning, where a song that played during a particularly emotional event in someones lives (happy or sad), once played again years later can bring back those emotions and memories. Or even inspire and uplift people by making them feel part of a collective, especially so in bands/performers with a huge following of fans.  One example I am aware of is "The Black Parade' by My Chemical Romance being heavily recognised by both fans of the band and the genre itself of helping many teenagers recognise their own depression and dark thoughts, often associated with the 'emo' style and trend as "just a phase" by many unknowing adults.  This coming together of fans at concerts/forums/events and seeing that they actually were not alone in the thoughts they were having and could discuss how they felt openly with others without the fear of being judged has on multiple self recorded occasions stopped a young adult from taking their own life, resulting in the common phrase with fans that "The Black Parade saved my life/saved me".

When it comes to video games as a format I have to separate them from games in general as I believe it is widely agreed that small mini games used to educate younger children have been very successful in changing lives due to the primary purpose they serve, think of counting games on BBC Bitesize and other apps.  Not that they do not have a place or merit when discussing games having affects other than entertaining but due to their primary purpose being to educate its best to separate from games that a re primarily for entertainment but through successfully paying attention to both target audience and subject matter can attain success at an immersive and experience that has a cathartic affect on the audience inevitably having a change on their life.

I also feel that looking at video games that can be argued to have had a negative impact on peoples lives holds a place in this conversation but can be looked at in depth separately such examples would be the GTA series and games with excessive violence and how the media suggests this can lead to real world violence from the players of said games.

For this initial bit of research I want to look at games that have deep subject matters and aim to positively help audiences who may have experienced something similar to the games materials and what techniques they use and how successful they were at doing so and how this could help in the design process of my own game idea.

My first prime example I have had experience playing is the video game "Rime" which is all about a father coming to terms with the loss of a child, though this is not fully understood till the game has been finished.

Other examples that have both come to mind and also suggested that I will look into are;

Ether One - dealing with dementia

The Stanley Parable - dealing with choice and consequences

Zelda: Majoras mask - dealing with the Kubler-ross model of grief in its 5 stages

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - dealing with psychosis

No doubt through this continued research other games will come up with varying amounts of success as well as how much of the game looks into these deeper questions and circumstances.

I will also continue to develop character and setting concept art alongside this research hoping to keep a theme and style throughout for the human body that instills this need for exploration as mentioned in the previous pitch post so I do not lose sight of the entertainment side of the game being about exploration of a 2D platform environment.