Depictions of Mental Illness in Video Games: Breaking the Stigma

The sport mechanics of Spiritfarer are comparatively easy. It’s a administration sport through which you take care of crops, cook dinner meals, and collect assets. You develop nearer to the spirits aboard your ship via their quest traces, however you’ll be able to nonetheless work together with them via different methods, whether or not or not it’s via studying their favourite meals or just giving them hugs. 

All the spirits that Stella encounters knew her of their previous lives. One such character is Jackie, who labored with Stella at a hospital earlier than his dying. Jackie struggled with burnout and despair throughout his time working on the hospital, which manifested dialogue through which he questioned the aim of life. Jackie struggles with self-doubt till his journey to the Everdoor, the place the place Spirits would totally cross over to the afterlife. On the journey there, Jackie thanks Stella for caring for him, but additionally says “I do know I didn’t deserve it.” Whereas Jackie reaches a state of acceptance earlier than he crosses over, as all of the spirits you meet finally do, he doesn’t remove his doubts.

Simply as in Celeste, the interior struggles of the spirits that Stella meets are part of them. After a spirit crosses via the Everdoor, their dwelling nonetheless stays on the boat, empty. Ultimately, a flower grows inside, reminding the participant of the loss they’ve witnessed via an emblem of magnificence. In Spiritfarer, not one of the characters put together for the Everdoor in the identical manner, and none of those characters heal in the identical manner. 

The primary spirit you meet, Gwen, struggles with suicidal ideas when she reaches the ultimate stage of her terminal sickness. Simply as with each different character, the participant, as Stella, helps them transfer on. Your character is the principle methodology of therapeutic for practically each character you meet, but the way in which through which you assist Gwen isn’t by stopping her inevitable dying, however as a substitute it’s by bringing upon acceptance. Total, Spiritfarer addresses the complexities of psychological sickness purely via the nuances of grief and loss.

The sport establishes that there isn’t a set answer, and there’s no one-sided depiction of the psychological struggles that these characters undergo. The characters don’t all clear up their very own points, but not directly, all the spirits heal and all the spirits transfer on.