I have to say I’m lucky to be someone who never had to worry about needing to deal with traumatic experiences or depression, but I’ve seen way too many cases among my peers and friends to under look impact they may have on different individuals. After playing through the different games this semester each relating to this subject, I gained many new insights into how these problems might harm and effect different people. From a gamer’s perspective, the games “Gris” and “Gone Home” gives totally different experiences when you play through them. Not surprisingly, they express the idea of depression and traumatic experience in very different ways.
If you were like me and hadn’t thought much when first playing, after playing “Gris” for the first time, you might not pick up on what it tries to convey. However, if aware, it’s obvious how the visuals, audio, and playstyle together represent how the girl experiences a trauma, the shattering of the world in the beginning scene, and slowly recovers from it and mends her world as you progress through the stages. Gris gives players a first-person abstract experience on trauma and recovery as one goes through the different stages of grief.
The game starts off with the shattering of the world, as well as the girl falling and losing her colors. In the world made up of only white and destroyed buildings, you control the girl to take her first few slow and trembling steps. These first steps are the hardest for one who has just experienced trauma to take, summing up the courage to move forward and face more challenges to come. As players progress through the game, you come across large stages with different colors that represents different emotions. Taking the first colored red stage in the game as an example, the world around you turns red, a color that represents extreme emotions and anger. Aside from the coloring, terrains change to that of harsh cliffs and deserts with strong winds that prevent you from moving forward. Along with the visual change, the background music also changes from this far away and lost sounding melody to something of more excitement, raising tension of the player. The visual and audio changes throughout the levels allow players to experience first-hand, somewhat abstractly, the emotions the girl goes through after her world falls apart, and the different stages of grief.
Compared to having a first-person experience of grief, “Gone Home” gives players all the information from a third person perspective as you find information in the empty house. Also greatly utilizing the players’ sense of vision and hearing, this game first creates a dreary and tense atmosphere. With the dark setting and sounds of a thunderstorm in the background, it almost seems like a horror game. Unlike “Gris” though, you need to piece the story together and process in the game by looking for hints about what happened in your family while you were gone. There are pieces of the story all over the house like Sam’s journal, your dad’s letter with his boss, and even bills for different items. This time you receive the story of trauma and depression of your sister Sam and different members of your family through these evidences. This perspective is one that is often the case when you find people around you being in similar situations.
While the two games take different approaches towards expressing this idea of experiencing trauma or grief, none of this is expressed directly. In both games, players need to look for clues, try and take in whatever hint there is, and really think about what goes on to receive the message each game is tries to convey. Similar to trauma and depression in real life, those undergoing these experiences are often unable to directly express their difficulties. To recognize what is going on, one needs to carefully observe their actions, and digest their words, to recognize and respond to their silent calls for help.
When playing “Gris”, you experienced the different stages of grief and the challenges one faces in order to overcome them. Players familiarize themselves with the mechanics of the game in order to progress. Sometimes one even needs to utilize what before has blocked his or her way. Using the red stage again as an example, strong winds and the ability to turn into a block serve as the obstacle and solution. This is similar to recovering from a traumatic experience or overcoming depression. One faces and learn to embrace what causes their pain. In this process, he or she becomes stronger and more resilient to the pressure they feel and overcome them. In Gris, as the girl progresses through the differently colored stages, the world slowly recovers from the shattered monochromatic white to include more color, more emotions, and more put back together as a whole.
Instead of the abstract expression of trauma and challenges one faces, Gone Home illustrates much more realistic problems, and thus different ways one may react to and approach them. As you make out a picture of what’s going on in your home and learn about the pressure your sister Sam goes through, you realize not everything turns out the best way possible. Aside from being made fun of in school, her parents also strongly opposed her being with the girl Sam falls in love with. Although players might have been led to predict a bad ending with possible horror elements, all that happened was they ran away from home. Not the best nor the worse that could have happened. On the other hand, each with their own complicated problems, the protagonist’s parents make an attempt towards mending their own problems. Amongst many other themes shown through the game, it’s clear that communication is a key step towards fixing things, but not everyone is able to make that move as they are troubled by different concerns.
Despite the different media, just like any other forms of work, games like “Gris” and “Gone Home” narrates the harsh situation people with depression or having experienced a traumatic experience face. Everyone have different ways of perceiving and reacting to them, but they often face a common problem of being unable to communicate their difficulties to those around them. In today’s world with increasing cases of depression amongst teens, it is especially important for us to, as we do in games, search carefully for hints and reach out to those who may be in need of help.
Syaru's Pond 