Devpost link here
- Download Godot 3.3.3 from here
- Clone the repo
- Open godot and scan the repo
- Select "Export" from the Project Tab at the top
- Export to HTML5 / Windows (only tested on these 2)
Anxiety is widespread in a fast-paced country such as Singapore, with approximately 10% of citizens facing either anxiety or depressive orders. It ranges between being mild to serious, but like many other mental illnesses, not many people readily seek help for their anxiety, be it for reasons such as fear, or simply feeling that it is not dire enough to warrant action.
And it’s perfectly fine to feel uncomfortable with seeking help or personalised advice -- but sometimes, all we need is a little reminder. Some might even know friends who face anxiety, and hope to understand their feelings better in order to better extend valuable help. As such, we seek to provide an experience that can resonate with those going through anxiety and assurance that they are not alone, and can educate those who are learning how to lend a hand.
Our team has developed an interactive, humorous and entertaining game that follows the adventures of a microbe with social anxiety. Through the game, players may find themselves relating to the main character’s conundrums or woes, and will get to select different responses to various situations that may cause social anxiety, and manage an “anxiety bar” as the character goes through events in a day.
The catch: at the end of every scenario, the character’s accumulated anxiety will manifest as a ghost that reminds players of previous events that had transpired. These ghosts will continue to haunt the character for the rest of the day, while still having to tackle the rest of the day’s challenges.
After all the scenarios, the character will confront the ghosts haunting them, learning how to sort out and reflect on anxiety through different thought processes and rationalisations. The game aims to allow sufferers of social anxiety to feel more comfortable about their illness, and for companions who wish to help to be more informed.
After research and discussions on mental-health-related conditions, we decided to focus on social anxiety disorder. The 2D game was built on Godot engine, with preliminary route planning done on Twine. Assets were mostly created from scratch using the pixel art website Pixilart, while a small amount of assets were acquired from open sources.
Our team’s relative unfamiliarity with game development, with the majority of our members being beginners at Godot and its scripting language, meant that much of our time was spent on learning the inner workings of this game engine alongside developing our game. The time frame of one day was therefore quite tight on us.
Additionally, we were unaccustomed to maneuvering the node-based environment of Godot, which led to unsynchronized common assets between our scenes and a series of merge conflicts. Working with the animation player was also difficult as we were inexperienced, and crashes occurred often when we were attempting to construct or modify scene instances as well.
Lastly, creating art assets for a full game with customised local assets (such as our very own Singapore buses) within the time limit proved to be a challenge as well.
Firstly, we are highly proud of the knowledge we have gained regarding mental health in general and anxiety disorders specifically. Secondly, we were able to apply this knowledge in reality by building a concrete game that may resonate with the members of the community, and enable their loved ones to take a step into the latter’s emotional worlds. Thirdly, despite being total beginners at game development, we finished the storylines, custom arts, and the coding within the time frame, managing to complete 1 + 3 +1 rooms and enabling a smooth and enjoyable user experience.
Our team learnt many important facts about anxiety, such as how common it was in Singapore and possible ways to address it -- especially as a non-professional listening ear, or even as the very person experiencing the anxiety. Many of the scenarios in the game were birthed from our member’s own experiences; in fact, one of the members experienced the scene of having to pay for a $1.40 snack with a $50 bill during the development process!
Moreover, our team gained much teamwork experience in our journey to successfully deliver the product. With regards to the technical aspect specifically, our team was exposed to Godot as a game engine and gdscript, along with the relevant concepts such as nodes, sprites, canvas layers, etc. We also acquired substantial git-related skills during our struggle to resolve merge conflicts.
The game could expand to include other forms of anxiety, such as Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) -- or even other common ailments, such as depression -- which we did not choose as the basis of this game as we were lacking in knowledge about the disorders. However, with appropriate research in qualified sources, different variants of the game could be made to cover common mental illnesses, with a common theme of providing a relaxing, relatable and educational experience that will allow sufferers (or friends of sufferers) to feel comfortable and more informed about the illnesses. This could encourage some to take the first step to seeking professional help, or just provide them the motivation to get through the day.