Recognize the Survivors

Game Link:

http://philome.la/HeatherRose318/survivors-guilt

I have been thinking about this topic for sometime because it really intrigued me.  I then found out that my roommate had no idea what it was, which lead me to realize that the topic of survivor’s guilt is something that is not often talked about, especially in media.  There are a few films and television shows that allude to a character who experiences survivor’s guilt, but they don’t right out acknowledge it.  They sort of play it off as a form of PTSD or depression, which is what survivor’s guilt essentially is, but gives a greater clarity to the issues people with this face on a specific level instead of a general sense. 

            What I wanted to accomplish with this game was to portray a few examples of situations where survivor’s guilt often correlates.  I wanted to show these experiences from the perspective of someone who has these feelings and don’t know exactly how to express them.  Throughout my research, my findings drew up a lot of personal stories of people with this which expressed their thoughts on the subject.  Creating the game in a perspective where the player is a person in a particular situation gave a tone that allowed a narration of the characters’ thoughts and feelings distinctly instead of it being in a different point of view where it would be mere conjecture as to how a person with survivor’s guilt would think and feel.  My sources: health and performance solutions, real warriors, and band back together websites all talked about the inward discussion of a person with survivor’s guilt; how they felt, what they thought, how to help them, what recovery options there could be, what sort of symptoms occur.  These all helped to develop each individual situation to be unique to it’s own events and situations.

            Creating this game reminded me a lot of the Donner Party game from way back when.  You essentially are creating this own story line, but at the same time you aren’t because it is preprogrammed with responses that lead down certain paths of success or failure.  Relying heavily on Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk, I wanted to stay away from the single story of a person with survivor’s guilt.  That’s why I presented four different stories that had distinct differences between them that could potentially cause survivor’s guilt in a person of similar circumstances.  Now it did end up that most of the situations would end hopefully in the positive, they were still open ended, but at least gave the hope for healing.  However, just because a story ended similarly, doesn’t mean that all that was represented in my game was the same story retold.  All lead to the final words of the game that tied up the importance of talking more openly of the distress many survivors are in because there isn’t as much emphasis on their well being as the dead sometimes.