Video games should be like a good conversation; they should talk back and interact with you,
and that’s how you learn from them.—James Gee, author, Why Video Games are Good For Your Soul
I’ve never seen a student lead one of the College’s Humanities Colloquia, a venue where faculty typically preview their research.
But Kyle Schwab ’15 looks confident, calm, and focused as Professor Mike Abbott invites him up to walk his audience through a video game.
Forty-plus teachers and students packed into Detchon Room 209 stare at the screen at the front of the room and the game’s title looming there:
Today I Die
The ominous name doesn’t jibe with the pixelated cartoon mermaid below it. Schwab clicks “start” and more words appear:
dead world – full of shades
today I die – dark – painful
“So, we have some choices to make,” Schwab says with a tone more akin to a therapist’s than a Wabash senior’s. He shows us how to maneuver the mermaid so she protects a jellyfish from a school of piranhas just long enough for the word “shine” to appear.
Sort of cute, but not for long.
Now you replace the word “die” with “shine.” Now the same maneuver swaps out the word “dead” for “dark.”
Then shadows appear like tumors. They attack the girl and drag her down. The more frantically she moves, the more quickly the shadows rush at her.
And you can feel the room’s mood shift. We want know how to save her. This silly little cartoon mermaid.
I recognize the shadows. Anyone who has battled depression would know them, how they move and block the girl’s escape. Would relate all too well to futile attempts to outrun or fight them. It’s all moving so fast it’s exhausting. As if there’s no way to win.
I recognize the girl, too. She’s me years ago in my parents’ car, alone, mashing the gas pedal on a South Mountain Road.
Or my father-in-law with the shotgun barrel in his mouth.
Or Robin Williams with the belt in his hands.
Then Kyle shows us a way out. A long and determined but possible path. I won’t give it away, but at the end the screen reads:
free world – full of beauty
today I swim – until you come
An alternative ending swaps “until you come” with “better by myself.”
I’m tearing up and snuffling, and standing because there were no chairs left: a 59-year-old man who clearly has some serious issues.
It’s just a cartoon mermaid, for god’s sake!
Kyle ends the game. The room is quiet for a moment. Then the applause.
There’s time for questions.
I want to ask this 22-year-old why he chose this game? Did the designer say why he created it?
But I don’t want people looking at me, tear-streaked and snotty. So I look down, clean my glasses, and listen.
Back in the office I read on the Web: “Today I Die
is a game by Daniel Benmergui that uses pixelated meta-phors and morphing poetry to explore the journey back from the brink of suicidal depression.
“It’s about the daily choice of waking up in the morning.”
Benmergui’s own walk-through begins: “This game is not about winning, so read this only if you are about to give up forever!”
So I’m not totally nuts to experience the game this way.
I wonder if it works in reverse: Do those who haven’t suffered from depression understand it better after playing the game?
When I photographed Abbott’s and designer Brett Douville’s class on game design earlier in the semester, I walked in as a skeptic. The video games of my generation were Pong and Asteroids. As a children’s magazine editor, I wrote stories
about the detrimental effects of shooter games.
Why study games at all, much less design them?
But as one of Abbott’s students commented, “When I hear someone say games are a waste of time, I say, ‘You’re just playing the wrong games.’”
In class I heard about This War of Mine, inspired by the Siege of Sarajevo but focusing on the civilian experience.
I watched Emiliano Aguilara ’15 demo a simple Twine game he designed that revealed to me the anguish that is the U.S.-Mexico border.
I observed a student-to-student critique session so honest it would put most writer’s workshops to shame.
I heard students talk about spending their entire Spring Break refining, testing, and tweaking the games they designed.
And now this pixelated mermaid makes me cry like my best dog just died.
The next time the Welbutrin isn’t working and darkness emerges in the middle of my day, I’m going to remember Today I Die. I’m going remember how Kyle got us out of there. And I know how to do it, too—went to the Web site and played it myself.
There have been plenty of studies of how damaging the “wrong” games can be. Maybe someone should be looking more closely at how the “right” ones can generate empathy and understanding. Even healing.
In Abbott’s and Douville’s course on Game Design and Human Values, they did exactly that.—Steve Charles