Looking for a game that can make you a better person? That’s one of the goals behind the upcoming game Nevermind, a biofeedback enhanced adventure horror game. The game works to teach players to manage stress and anxiety by monitoring the player’s heart rate. If the biofeedback indicates the player is scared or stressed, the game gets more intense, requiring the player to calm down to more easily progress through the game. As a huge fan of horror games, I’m intrigued. Although at first glance, the idea of the game getting harder as the player gets more frightened seemed backwards to me. I’ve played many horror games, and often find myself hard to scare. Generally, I’m happy if I can get a nice creepy feeling from a game’s atmosphere, but with the exception of Outlast, I can’t remember the last time a game scared me. (And, for context, I was playing Outlast in a big, empty building in the middle of the night, so I’m not sure if the game would have been quite as frightening had I been playing it on my couch.) My fear with a game that requires me to get scared before the game gets harder is that the game will be too easy, and I will be bored. I would be curious, though, to see if the game picks up on stress or tension levels that I’m not aware of or that aren’t necessarily indicative of my being “scared,” as I am more than sure my heart rate goes up simply when a game starts to get frustrating.
But, frustrated or scared, I can see the possible benefits of a game that forces you to manage your stress in order to progress. Reynolds and her team hope the game will help players learn to manage their stress and anxiety and that these learned skills will transfer over into real life, with players possibly realizing relief from symptoms of anxiety or post traumatic stress syndrome. The game received mostly positive comments in this review, although many commenters also expressed concern that the game might be too easy for those hard to scare. But, some commenters expressed that their anxiety is not a game. Understandable, and even though the developers describe the game as one that will possibly give players “tools to help themselves,” I imagine the developers intend for the player to be under a doctor’s care in cases of extreme anxiety disorders or, as the developers mention, post traumatic stress disorder. In this video, Marientina Gotsis, Director of USC’s Creative Media and Behavioral Health Center, describes how Nevermind could be used to create positive change through therapeutic applications:
As someone who suffers a bit from anxiety, I will be interested in watching this project as it develops. Nevermind is currently in development as a Kickstarter project, and the project page states, “one of our long-term goals is to craft a health-centric version of Nevermind specifically targeted to help actual patients develop tools to manage and ultimately overcome their condition.” I’m skeptical that a game could actually scare me enough to be therapeutic, but we all have fears, right? A game like this would be quite effective for me if the goal involved, say, getting down from a really high place. (I’m terrified of heights.) So while the horror genre itself may not be effective for everyone, it would be interesting to see what fears could be built into the game. In fact, as one of their Kickstarter stretch goals, Nevermind’s developers promise to reveal Erin’s “very unique (some would say bizarre!) fear.
I’ll admit I would have some trepidation, though, with turning my fear into a game. On one hand, I would love, love, love for a horror game to actually scare me. On the other hand, if a game is truly trying to address the underlying reasons for my anxiety, I wonder what possible harmful side effects that could lead to. For at least some of my friends, playing a horror game is already almost impossible because they do get too scared. So, while for some the game may not be scary enough, it may be too scary for others. But I, for one, am looking forward to watching this project develop. In the mean time, I will probably pay more attention to my frustration levels when I play games. Games are already harder when I’m too tired or frustrated. Maybe by paying more attention to those feelings I can better manage them.
