Hello, everyone – We hope you’re doing well.

This blog is to monitor the progress of our development of this project for public viewing – In summary, this will hopefully some day become…

LENS

The mental illness RPG.

While pitching this concept to members of the dev team and people in my personal life, I have found that basic concept has a good ring to it, but it’s also complicated.

At this stage we have a lot of refining to do before we can firmly say anything that might be of note to the public, but I have at least some things to mention for the first big announcement, but before I begin I feel it is crucial to convey something about the sensitive nature of the topic with which our game concept will deal.

The core reason this idea seemed like something worth pursuing is that the person who conceptualized the game (who is also writing this), several persons in that individuals life and all two other people who have offered help in developing the game have all wrestled with issues such as anxiety, depression and other maladies. Throughout life we can often hear about how many things, from ongoing struggles to mundane activities in our routines, can be handled effectively by ‘making a game of it’. Cleaning, work, etc. In no way would I ever say that dealing with mental illness of any severity to be something worth making light of. I find depression/anxiety to be illogically persistent in my life to the point where they at times make all other efforts of carving out a satisfying existence seem pointless. That said, I have personally found that the ‘mechanics’ of keeping those parts of myself in check can be broken down into a format which I can almost treat like a game – Cycles, habits, keeping track of personal stats on some level. This and the simplistic nature of RPG mechanics were the crux of my intentions to making a game around mental illness.

For some preamble to the basics of this concept, I should like to mention an idea that was sort of the progenitor to the core gameplay. Some time ago I imagined a Sims-like game, but with acknowledgement of life’s harsh realities as an integral part of the gameplay. You’d have little people living in a house to some degree, whether single or multiple under your control, but things like drug addiction, mental illness and human atrocities could all take place. I never got to develop this idea much beyond spending an evening thinking about it’s nuances and I must say that I don’t like it enough to work to build an entire game around it (unless people see this and think it’s a good idea). Looking at the idea which I now present, I’d say it’s somewhat descended from that one.

Gameplay-wise, LENS will be a sort of life simulation RPG that follows the life of a person who has just attempted suicide. Following this attempt, the character is encouraged to take aid from a psychotherapist and given some inlkings as to how they could possibly change for the better to avoid further episodes. Therein lies the core gameplay – The player will need to navigate the life of the character in a way that keeps their mental health in check.

Many of the exact workings of the games mechanics should never be directly communicated to the player for the sake of the games ability to accurately convey, to whatever small degree, what dealing with mental illness is like. This means I won’t be able to say much about how certain things work aside from what’s in the game at a glance as we add it, but I’m sure I’ll find things to talk about that won’t spoil it.

At this time we’re conceptualizing that the game would play through 365 in-game days of the characters life until an ending is reached, that the character may be pre-written entirely or may be customizeable, and how some basic elements of audio/visual feedback will work.

At this stage we’re working on a prototype, so until we develop something more substantial, I’ll take the time to introduce the team as far as we have it at the moment.

Chad – Largely I take on the role of ‘director’ – I haven’t much to contribute on the technical side of things. I know the fundamentals of a few different programming languages but I have no experience building anything with them. The core concept is something I envisioned and I’m giving partial creative control to others that are involved on the ground level with me. My expertise is fairly peripheral – I’ve studied business and marketing, game design theory and audio engineering. This means that my role in developing this aside from just deciding what goes where and how things feel will be music and, should we implement it, the whole process that is putting in voice acting. Outside of that, I handle PR/social media and am chiefly responsible for making sure people hear about us.

Hans – When I met this fellow, I asked him what he did for fun – He said that he sat at his computer building video games for fun. He has one or more of his own concepts in the works just because he likes spending time doing this sort of thing, and should he ever want to put those out there some day I have offered my services since he is providing a major technical backbone to this project. He knows several languages and the nuances of various engines, including the one we want to use, with plenty of experience actually putting them to use. He has agreed to take on this project to the point of doing some demo building and will decide on his continued participation based on how interesting he finds it and/or how much interest the project gains publicly.

Ben – A very talented artist. Aside from having a collection of digitial and physical work that even someone as hesitant to offer excessive praise as myself is openly impressed with, I once handed him a single pen and a notepad while he was over for lunch and was given a landscape on an alien world with a family going about it’s daily routine, antennae and all. I may even take a picture and put it up, and I will very likely put links up to his work to help get the word out, as I’m sure he’ll benefit from that. He has given much less concrete terms to his participation because he’s hard to motivate, but we are essentially treat him with the same terms Hanz has agreed to work. He may put in a little effort and, if it gets somewhere, maybe more.

If you should see this and you like what you see, if you are interested in the concept we’re starting with, please tell your friends – We have Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you should want to offer help in some way, I’ve made a sort of business email available through this blog. We are far from a real business yet, but I’m determined to get somewhere with this.