This is my final draft for my thesis on the representation of mental health in video games.
DE4402 Research In
Context: Mental Health Representation in Videogames
CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION
PERSONAL RESEARCH STUDIES
Lawlight Maledictus
American McGee
Natalie Martinsson
Robery Kurvitz
PRACTICIONER LECTURES
Benni Hill
Robert Alan Watson
Sarah Kennedy
CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION:
In the university work and private work that I have completed and worked on, I
have primarily focused on creating effective character design and secondarily writing
for many different characters, including their personalities and struggles.
Along with this, one thing that I do tend to focus on is the negative aspects
of characters, highlighting the fault each of them have, mostly from their
inner struggle. This is all in an effort to help interpret how characters can
have flaws and problems with them, more specifically, mental health, and how it
can be represented. In the video games industry, there are many different
artists and game developers who are able to also convey these aspects of mental
health in many aspects through the games they develop, be it in the player
character, a separate character, or represented in the world they populate.
In this contextual research, I will take a deeper look into the use of creating
art and characters in videogames that focus on representing multiple aspects of
mental health in order to achieve a greater understanding of its uses in
videogames it appears in, all in order to see how this compares to my own work,
and understand the effectiveness it has to fairly show to a game’s audience the
topics of mental health within their characters and environment. I will also
explore the artists who delve deep into the ideas of mental health,
interviewing each one that are exceptional enough where they can help bring a
lot of useful insight onto the same topics presented.
PERSONAL RESEARCH STUDIES:
For the gathering of evidence for this research, I have looked at different
artists, inside and outside of the video games industry, in order to understand
their distinctly different creative processes from which I can learn from, and
to compare those to my own body of work in order to see how my own work is
comparable, as well as how it also contrasts. This was also to help understand
my aims as a game developer and artist, and what my own intentions are with my
game projects, with how I am able to learn what to aim for when compared to
other artists.
One artist that I have discovered who has excelled in the themes of
representing mental health is known as ‘Lawlight Maledictus’. His art mainly
comes from personal experiences throughout his life, interpreting it with
morbid imagery and the uncanny valley to express how wrong something feels.
While, as an artist, his work has not been part of a commercial or independent
video game project, his work was tantamount in understanding and translating
the themes appropriately. From the interview I conducted with him, he has
stated that “I've struggled with mental health and autism at a very young age
and every day I take it as it comes for me to break the cycle I do a lot of
mental health art. The majority of my work is based on my own or others mental
health.” Compared to my own body of work, Lawlight has different context to
showing his sides of mental health though his art, and has accomplished this in
a macabre manner that gives the topic much needed nuance. This has influenced
my own aims with my projects, which Lawlight has told me not to hide any
details about mental health when representing it, making sure I show the full
picture, it allows me to be authentic with my own work and not spare any
details about a character and the mental health problems that are represented
through that.
Another artist that I have tried to contact about this topic
is American McGee, the main artist and designer of the Alice: Madness Returns
series. His work and process is primarily focused on conveying a twisted
subconscious world through the eyes of a troubled woman, titularly named Alice.
The world that was built for these games are a staple of psychological horror,
combining a sprawling world whose concepts are able to challenge the player.
Compared to my own work, McGee has been able to make this a commercial success
through the excellent character design and being able to interpret the
struggles of Alice. When compared to McGee’s body of work, My own work has been
focused on delivering a similar level of quality through its character design
being able to say much more without any words spoken, as well as a project that
focuses on the mental health problems of a girl. It has also taught me that the
world building as part of the representation is equally as important as the
characters, be it how the main character perceives reality or how other people
can implant their own reality onto others. I have tried to get into contact
with the artist to further understand their process, but I was unable to get a
reply.
The next artist that I have contacted is Natalie Martinsson, creator of the
horror games Fran Bow and Little Miss Fortune, which both focus on a girls in a
horror setting dealing with drastic mental health problems, usually relating
back to aspects of mental health, trying to survive the horrors of each world
they are in. Martinsson is able to show through her designs, in both the world
of the games and the characters that populate it, that people can and will
suffer, but there is light at the end of each tunnel, which is a positive
message that understanding these issues and dealing with mental health in a
professional and respectful manner is the right thing to do. This compares to
my own body of work by going deep into the psychology of a person and how the
world around them affects them personally, and it is also able to show that a
person who has a friend is able to prosper after finding help, and this can
help someone overcome many problems. My own work will follow a similar
structure through my next project. I have tried to contact her, but
unfortunately I was not able to get into contact with this artist. Despite
this, their portfolio was an integral part of my evidence gathering to
understand what my own aims are.
Another artist who has been a reliable source of information is Robert Kurvitz,
the designer for the computer role-playing game, Disco Elysium. Kurvitz’s work
is primarily focused on creating a world where the people in it endure a lot of
torment, in the context of Lovecraftian horror, yet the suffering of the
characters and the trials and tribulations they go through is apparent. While
his video game is a definite talking point, the literature he has also created
follows similar stories in the same world as his game, which was to positive
acclaim, consistently keeping the same methods of the portrayal of mental
wellbeing intact. An interesting point about this game is that Disco Elysium
even quantitates emotional strength as a statistic, which shows its importance
as a plot point in relation to a character’s mental wellbeing. My own body of
work draws parallels to their own because the games and books that Kurvitz has
worked on are all about the characters that feature in the game, making them
the focal point that the player and narrative should focus on the most. Furthermore,
my aims for my projects are similarly focused on the characters the player
follows, and understanding them as characters, be it through their triumphs and
what negative aspects there are about them.
PRACTICIONER LECTURES:
In order to gain more insight on the topics I have been covering for this
research, it was in my best interest to seek out different artists that have
greater experience covering these different topics.
The artists I looked into are people who are inside and outside of the games
and art industry whos art is still valuable to my research.
Over the course of the Masters Degree Course, the University Of Central
Lancashire has invited visitors from different artists and developers in the
games design industry, some of which have worked with the same topics that I
have focused on. I have made sure to ask specific questions to each of the
speakers whos topics they covered were of great importance to my research.
BENNI HILL:
Benni Hill is the creative director of Bonsai Collective, a games studio in the
UK, who excels in world-building and writing for games. His appeal for
videogames started with Sonic and later story-driven games like Shenmue. He was
an artist at the University Of Central Lancashire, where he did stop-motion
animation and studied the production process extensively. He has had a place at
White paper Games, in which he was successful; In the games he has worked for, he
explored the concepts of demantia in a game his team has worked on, Ether One, using
the topics of dementia as a driving force, which was received with high critical
praise. Subsequently, this trend continued with the game ‘Luminova’, a game
that deals with the topic of anxiety. The games that he has directed was one of
the reasons wh I deemed his work to be valualbale to this research, as we had
something to compare our bodies of work to.
It was important that I interview him to understand what he knew about the
topics of mental health in games.
My own body of work compares to his by focusing primarily on the mental health
problems that are the focal point of a character or story, and the goal of
representing them and exploring what it means to the main character the player
controls is a top priority for the player to experience, as it is what the
foundation of the game is built upon. My aims for my own project are similar to
his own, focusing primarily on the characters and
ROBERT ALAN WATSON:
A speaker who explained his process and journey is Robert Alan Watson, who is a
graphic designer who has set up his own design company, called Raw Design
Studio, and has worked on small and large scale projects using his art
direction and design, to make products such as bedsheets with educational
value, and podcasts about creative innovation. Robert has usually gone through
a meticulous process whilst designing each product and piece of work to make
his ideas a reality. Some of the products he has helped to design are with the
company Raw Design Studio, which was mainly about packaging meat for consumers
in an efficient and environmentally friendly way. While some of his projects
have little to do with the video games industry, his philosophies focus on the
creativity and effort with each idea he designs. I have tried to get into
contact with this artist to understand his creative process more, however, I
was not able to get any response from him.
From his body of work, it compares to mine by having a clear goal in mind
whilst designing anything, having a plan and moving forward with it. While his
work doesn’t usually focus on the mental health of a character or the player
character, his work ethic and his process is equally as important whilst
designing any project, and my aims, in relation to Watson’s work, are to make a
cohesive and approachable product, in the form of video games.
SARAH KENNEDY:
Another speaker that I have seen give a lecture in class was Sarah Kennedy, who
is a big name in the animation and voice acting industry, working for multiple
projects during her career, using multiple mediums of animation for each
project. A lot of her projects focus on the struggles of daily life that each
main character lives through. While this is not a case where her work has been
present in the video games industry, as an artist, her work is an invaluable
example as to the logic of representing different mental health problems. I was
sure to ask her my usual set of questions to understand her process and to see
if there is any connection to mental health throughout, to which she answered:
“I am interested in social realism, observational comedy, and humour. I
like work that says something, that highlights a social issue but in a humorous
way. Then way we co-exist with each other, the way our lives are intertwined,
the way people communicate, the nuances of social conditioning and cultural
norms. I find recording the voices and directing the actors the best bit.
The script comes to life and I can hear if it’s working. I always do this
as soon as the script is written. It gives you a strong idea that is
working in a relatively short time.”
From the answers given, it shows that Sarah has a clear
tendency to be able to effectively represent mental health in the projects she has
worked on, especially in shows such as Pond Life with the struggle of Dolly
Banks’ life and her inner struggle against her family’s wishes. Comparing her
body of work to my own, she has used many different mediums to tell stories
about different kinds of people, meanwhile I have not used as many mediums for
my own projects, only using so little in contrast.
To summarize my findings, there are many games and artists that are able to
represent different kinds of mental health within their properties with great
effectiveness, whilst also showing a large sum of nuance with the characters
that suffer through these challenges they prevail through. The artists and game
developers that I have interviewed were able to give me a much greater
understanding of how these themes are to be effectively interpreted within
their lines of work, whether it is purely visual in a character’s design and a game’s
environment, or represented through the character’s speech and actions that
help to convey it. Furthermore, the information that I have learnt from these
developers and artists can be used in further projects, both narrative and
design, in order to help convey the themes of mental health in a positive and
carefully structured manner towards an audience who would be able to understand
the messages that I wish to convey, be it a positive message, a message about
mental health, or a character study where the audience is able to identify with
a character’s flaws and struggles. My aims for my own projects have been shaped
by the different artists and developers I have attempted to contact and
research, and I have now learnt how to more easily give a more accurate and
honest portrayal of mental health problems, through a non-judgemental outlook
and giving much needed appreciation for the related characters.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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