Digital Narrative Games

The games I chose to play at home for the Digital Narrative Games assignment were Sleep Deprived Mom and Depression Quest. I found that the two were extremely different in subject matter, but similar in their structure. For example, both games give questions and react based on their previous question and answer. While playing the sleep deprived mom game, I found that I could somehow relate to tirelessly working mothers who have to balance so many different aspects of motherhood. The feeling of absolute hopelessness with each step you take (because you’re bound to lose 2 or 3 hours of sleep at least anyway) really puts the player of the game in the place of mothers all around the world. I’ve always seen the idea of motherhood as being a real miracle. Any average woman comes to a certain point in her life where she must suddenly conjure up incredible skills or patience, care, tenderness, strength, and wisdom. This game showed me just how hard the struggle to balance those things was, and it truly taught me to never take motherhood for granted (especially being a person who values their sleep so much!)

In the case of the depression quest game, I found that the detailed descriptions and incredible attention to detail every step of the game enhanced the experience and completely engulfed the player into how someone suffering from depression feels on a daily basis. I particularly enjoyed the use of some choices and phrases that would not instantly come to mind. It requires a huge amount of human empathy, understanding and emotional intelligence to be able to create that point of view. After playing the game, I of course felt quite emotionally drained and reflective on the lives of those who suffer from true clinical depression. It also made me realize that all of us have our bad days and ays where we feel like we cannot go on, but being able to deal with these feelings constantly is not an easy thing – and this is how I felt after only playing a 20 minute computer game! One thing I would suggest for the game would probably be to lessen the ambiguity of instruction, and maybe spell out the instructions and aim of the game a bit more, as at times one can lose sight of the goal and the right way to play the game.

But otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed playing these two games that each made me think about the people around us in a completely different way, and a way I hope everyone considers.