DE4402 Research In Context: Mental Health Representation in Videogames

 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:

Dunlap. K. N. (n/a). Representation of Mental Illness in Video Games. iThrive Games. n/a(n/a), pp.81-81. [Online]. Available at: file:///C:/Users/jbigl/Downloads/09.Representation%20of%20Mental%20Illness%20in%20Video%20Games.pdf [Accessed 2 April 2023].

Instagram. (n/a). the__lone__artist. [Online]. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/the__lone__artist/?hl=en [Accessed 15 March 2023].

McGee, A. (n/a). Home. [Online]. American McGee's Blog. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://www.americanmcgee.com/ [Accessed 27 April 2023].

n/a. (n/a). About. [Online]. Killmonday Games. Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://killmondaygames.com/about/ [Accessed 27 April 2023].

n/a. (n/a). STUDIO-Bonsai Collective. [Online]. Bonsai Collective. Last Updated: n/a. Available at: https://www.bonsai-collective.com/ [Accessed 27 April 2023].

Watson, R.A. (n/a). About | Raw | Design & Digital Agency | North West (en-GB). [Online]. Raw | Design & Digital Agency | North West (en-GB). Last Updated: 2023. Available at: https://weareraw.co.uk/about [Accessed 27 April 2023].