Tag: thoughts

What’s Going On?

Posted on by in Real Life

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I’ve not given up on this site and the positive impact that I want it to have on the gaming community. A lot has happened in the world over the last four months, which hasn’t helped with the issues of motivation and burnout that I’ve talked about before on the site. If I’m completely honest with you all, I just haven’t wanted to write recently? Normally, I’m a very creative person. I love to build worlds and weave stories from nowhere, to sketch out goofy comics and play music. A lot of that has been sapped out of me during these trying months. What remains has to be rationed out carefully, so that the things that I hold dear don’t wither away to nothing.

The majority of my limited creativity has been laser focused on my D&D sessions with friends; in building elaborate backstories and complex plots for my characters and worlds. If I had to analyse the breakdown of my time over the last four months, I can say with certainty that outside of eating, sleeping and doing my job, I dedicate my time to escapism. Be that watching videos, binging new series, reading, playing D&D, playing Among Us or laughing at my kittens antics – I have preferred to avoid dwelling on my own mental health for too long. I’m well aware that it isn’t the healthiest approach to the world but at the moment, it’s all I can really work up the effort to achieve.

This is the sixth article I’ve tried to write over the last few months. The only thing I’ve been able to keep up with is editing together my D&D campaign episodes, which we do in podcast form. That’s what those Dungeons and Junkiez posts are all about! Yet, when it comes to writing, I keep starting pieces on games that I’ve been enjoying and rarely get past the opening sentence. Fun fact, I’m actually writing this in my web browser rather than in my usual Word Document. That’s the danger of losing motivation, it builds the association between your negative mindset and the activities that you are taking part in at the time. Part of me is scared that I won’t be able to write a proper article again, even though I know that is a bunch of rubbish my brain came up with.

Going into 2021, my main thought as I sat on my sofa, in my place, alone, on New Years Eve – a kitten on each leg, was that I didn’t want to fail you all. I know, I know, I could never fail you. Your support has always been unwavering, kind, generous, heartfelt and encouraging, no matter what I’ve produced. You are all the reason that my EGX panel even happened. I would never have taken that chance if it wasn’t for the community that stands behind me and cheers me on. MindGames wouldn’t have made it through the shitshow that was 2020 without you all. I’ve had so many dips this year, some of them deep enough that I wasn’t sure I could climb back up. Our choices mould who we become and I know that I’ve become a better person because of this site, because of this community, because you all manage to find something meaningful in my ramblings.

Right now, I’m sat at my desk in my makeshift office where I work from home. It’s where I’ve worked since I started my job back in August. Despite having good control over my hours, a positive work environment and a boss who is brilliant, I’ve struggled. Heck, I have more free time now than I did this time last year. Even whilst in my final year of university, production managing a show and holding down a part-time teaching job, I still found the time and the excitement to sit down and write about gaming and mental health for you all. Now, with all these free evenings, I struggle to cook dinner for myself. It’s weird. Depression’s a bitch.

I’m well aware that this piece doesn’t make much sense, I’m really just speaking from the heart of what’s been going on in my life for the last few months. I think the global pandemic has fucked with a lot of our mental states, which is something we need to accept. It’s ok that you’re not doing well. It’s ok that you’re anxious, that you’re afraid or you’re angry. We’ll get through this. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.

I’ll be back with a proper piece by the end of the month. I promise you all 🙂

CaitlinRC

The Walking Dead: More than just a river of tears.

Posted on by in Gaming

I’m not an openly emotional person. Sure, video games and their stories can move me in ways that I’d never expect, but I’m rarely openly sobbing with grief or screaming in fear at a jumpscare. One company that can consistently move me emotionally though, is Telltale Games. Obviously, they’ve been in the media recently due to the financial troubles and mass layoffs they’ve been experiencing. However, despite this they managed to finish off the story of Clementine – a character from their Walking Dead series that we as players, watched grow from a frightened child to a badass survivor who was probably more capable than every player combined.

Clementine in Season 1 – a sweet, innocent girl. For now.

This emotional journey is one that we can all relate to, despite the fictional setting that it is based in. As players, we walk alongside Clementine as she grows up, faces hardship and struggles in a cruel, unfair world. Sure, we don’t have the living dead walking around trying to chew our flesh off but then again, have you been to a student night out when they run out of Jaeger? By the time we, as the players even meet Clementine, she’s been surviving on her own against the undead population for three days already. Her parents are gone, her babysitter has turned into a monster and her life is turned into a manic scramble for survival.

Why am I talking about this? Well, the four seasons that follow Clementine have recently come to an end. For me, that’s closing a big part of what has formed me into who I am today. My experience with games such as those written by Telltale, ones that demand choices and force you to think about how your actions will affect others, have always had a strong impact on me. I make it my motto in life to never allow my actions to cause harm to another, be that emotionally or physically. Obviously, I cannot always be successful, as is the way of life.

Little Clem isn’t so little anymore.

Games like the Walking Dead demand a moral choice from you, but they do not provide a truly “good” option. They force you to choose between a rock and a hard place. Do you allow a father to shoot his dying son or do you do it yourself? Strong arguments can be made for both sides and there will always be repercussions. A good game leaves a strong impact on you, even weeks after playing it. The Walking Dead is one of those games for me, considering I haven’t played the original season in about 5 years and I’m writing about it right now.

How does this relate to mental health then, I hear you cry? After all, this whole site is about gaming and mental health! Well, the morality of your decisions, be they in a fictional world or in your everyday life, will affect your mental state. One of the most commonly portrayed symptoms of anxiety in media such as games and films is panic attacks caused by overthinking. Normally, it is visualised by a protagonist receiving bad news or a negative response, then spiralling internally until they struggle to breathe and cannot stop shaking. Some people do experience these types of attacks; however, it is not a universal anxiety symptom.

The right choice is never easy to make.

The smallest choices we make tend to be the ones that come back to haunt us the most. For example, if a friend had suddenly stopped messaging you, some people’s reaction would be to think that they had done something wrong and made them angry. The mind would pour over past events, searching for the tiniest detail that might explain their behaviour and latch onto it, ignoring the more logical option such as they may have turned off their phone in the cinema or their parents rang them.

This is often seen in Telltale’s games, where your idle conversation with the colourful cast of characters is brought up later down the line, either in support of you or to put you on trial as the bad guy (despite the millions of zombies surrounding them). This is particularly focused on in the final season where the choices you make and the lessons you teach to young AJ, mould him for the rest of his life. My favourite example of this is in the first season, where if you swear in front of Clementine early on, she will continue to swear later down the line. Though considering the trauma she ends up experiencing throughout all four games, I say swear all you want kiddo.

Don’t swear in front of the child Lee!

The powerful sequences written by Telltale, combined with a loveable cast of characters (except Ben, screw that guy) results in painful decisions that genuinely hurt you. This cannot be said of every Telltale game, but we’ll get to that another time. Every person you come across in the fictional apocalypse feels like they could walk out of the screen and sit in front of you. Which is why those decisions you make about their lives, become so much more than just choosing between a few boxes on a screen. If you are playing with a kind nature at the forefront of your mind, each loss comes as a personal attack on your choices.

One thing I will repeat throughout every article I write is that mental health is entirely unique to each person. My experience of anxiety is completely different from that of my friends or my family. This is because it is based on both my unique biological factors such as genetics, as well as my past experiences – e.g. any traumatic incidents or childhood fears etc. Poetically, everybody’s experience of a game like the Walking Dead series, is completely unique as well. There is a very small statistical chance that people will have the exact same run through, dialogue trees and all, but their reactions to what is occurring on the screen will still be unique.

Trust me when I say, Telltale aren’t messing around with this disclaimer.

That unique impact on your mental state, on your future decisions and on how you approach these types of games in the future, is a tribute to how important and powerful video games can be in shaping us. Although it was only a small factor of my younger years, I can say with absolute certainty that those games have moulded me into the person I am today. As a writer, a student, a friend and a family member, I owe the kindness and resilience I learnt from these games to those who created it.

More games in this genre do exist, not just ones created by Telltale. Though there is room for more games, and I welcome any developer who wishes to take a crack at it. I’ll talk about another game close to my heart soon. I’ll give you a hint, it involves debt and angry moles.

Till next time,

CaitlinRC.