Something Is Wrong

Disclaimer

This game contains references to the psychological effects of depression. If you find these uncomfortable or triggering, please refrain from playing. I intend to provide an introspective experience to raise awareness and, to some extent, help the people who might be suffering without realising it. All the phrases used in this game were supervised by a psychologist

Solo project with mentoring from psychologist Frederic Gil

With this solo project, I wanted to represent the effects of depression through mechanics. With the mentoring of psychologist Frederic Gil, I created an experience about the toxic thoughts of a depressed mind.

The process started by designing a mechanic that would closely follow the process of therapy and recovery from depression. This led to the idea of changing thoughts through text, representing the change in the state of mind. The fact that the player has to change them word by word mirrors the effort that has to be made to change toxic ideas.

The level design was inspired by the tunnel vision theorem, which defends the idea that the depressed subject has trouble in one or more of three areas: Themselves, their surroundings or their hope for the future. Therefore, there are three areas in the game, each one of them with puzzles related to one of these three mental schemes.

 The ultimate goal is to spread awareness and, to some extent, help some people uncover toxic thoughts in their day-to-day lives.