itch.io

Thanks for the response. I've already read through the content at that link, and while it clarifies some things, I am still finding the issue a bit tough to navigate.

I guess it boils down to the fact that, as a sufferer of several fairly severe mental illnesses and a person who plays a lot of games, I have never once, in all my years of both the playing and the suffering, come across a game that was explicitly trying to be therapeutic and actually succeeding. Any time a game has explicitly tried to do this, it felt, for lack of a better word, irritatingly preachy. Unlike a therapist, a piece of software cannot address the extremely individualized and idiosyncratic aspects of any given user's struggle, so its attempts to guide me towards feeling better usually aren't tailored to me, or even just me in that precise moment, under those precise circumstances, and thus feel like an attempt at a one-size-fits-all didactic approach. 

Now, I do play a lot of games, and I do enjoy games, clearly. And I have played many games that were able to help me kill a few dark hours here and there (only when my symptoms weren't too severe, of course, since past a certain point even something as simple as playing a game, no matter how engaging, is pretty much off the menu) but I've never played a game that genuinely alleviated any symptoms in any tangible way. I don't even feel less anxious, less depressed, or less prone to dissociation while playing, say, Myst (one of my favorite games and progenitor of one of my favorite genres) - instead, I am just an anxious, depressed, and dissociating person who happens to be playing Myst. On rare occasions, the pure escapism of a game can basically provide me a source of light distraction, and thus a bit of relief, but that's not really inherently therapeutic, is it? Maybe a coping mechanism? Maybe?

That is, unless distraction and escapism count as therapy in their own right, which I suppose I can see an argument for, though the phrasing does suggest something clinical even after the clarifications, and that trips me up a great deal. I do often appreciate that bit of distraction, despite the basically indisputable fact that as soon as it's over I am right back where I was before, no headway has been made in addressing my issues and no improvement has been made in my overall condition - I go right back to feeling just as awful as I was prior to allowing myself to get distracted, and can sometimes even feel worse if I allowed the distraction to monopolize my time because nothing else could bring any relief (essentially maladaptive self soothing). Still, "relief is relief, no matter how brief," and I understand the potential value of just killing a bit of time with something fun. However, if that's the criterion for what would be considered "therapeutic," in an adjunctive sense, of course, then don't literally ALL games, and ultimately all entertainment media, qualify as such? At least, doesn't every game serve that function for someone? 

So then what is disqualified? Does Tetris count because it allows many people to relax and zone out for a bit? Since I personally find Dark Souls relaxing, does Dark Souls count as a therapeutic game, despite the fact that it has apparently been known to actually heighten anxiety in others? Could I submit a dungeon crawler, a shooter, a farming sim, a point and click adventure? Does the game have to reference the fact that it's trying to be a therapeutic tool in order to qualify (thus basically ensuring its status as "educational software")? As I mentioned above, whenever a game has done this in the past, I felt patronized by it and profoundly turned off, and you've got to remember that we mentally ill folks can be a prickly and very picky bunch, and we really don't respond well to being patronized when it comes to our illness in particular. 

Now, if I am reading all the info correctly, then one can pretty much submit any kind of game so long as it centers at least one of the four tenets outlined in the article, and I suppose that's that. But it all just feels so vague and broad. For example, there are currently a bunch of games submitted to the jam that appear to be the standard bevy of cross-posted jam spam, but at the end of the day I actually can't think of a concrete reason, besides maybe the cross posting, that they shouldn't be allowed to stay up there. I mean, someone might find them to be helpful in regulating their emotions, or thoughts, or breathing. 

I don't know. At this point, it just seems like I am overthinking it (obviously am), and that this really just isn't the jam for me. And that's fine in the grand scheme of things. I just find this to be increasingly the case with mental health oriented jams in particular. I always find myself wanting to participate in one, and always realize that it's simply not suitable to my specific bundle of illnesses, which feels extra painful because you'd think these would be the jams where people like me would be able to contribute quite a bit, and would be able to feel comfortable or welcome. 

It's nobody's fault, perhaps. In this particular case, I suppose the OCD and the autism are doing the bulk of heavy lifting. Without additional clarity, I just can't conceptualize what is actually expected, and I am too afraid to attempt something that explicitly tries to help people like me in a clinical sense when I clearly can't even help myself and have simply never experienced a game of any kind or genre that I could confidently say addresses any one of my symptoms beyond simply serving as a (often maladaptive) coping mechanism. To even imagine that any work of art could serve as even adjunctive therapy feels almost trivializing to me (and I am a professional artist). These conditions are utterly devastating, and we have to live with them day in and day out. We don't get actual breaks. Even with treatment, they never completely go away, and all that regulating is often a constant drain on our energy and time that others do not have to deal with. And while I appreciate the bits of distraction and relief a game of Tetris can sometimes give us, it feels like an overwhelming, impossible, herculean task to try to plug a gaping abyss with a handful of tetraminos.

Well, either way, at this point there probably isn't enough time left for me to really submit anything anyway, but I do hope that maybe these rants can at least prove somewhat helpful to you, as feedback for future jams.