Touching on Suicide
For my thesis project, I am creating a visual novel to raise awareness for and spread information about mental disorders. The game follows five different girls, each with a different set of disorders. There are three different endings for each character (good, neutral, and “bad”), based on the choices the player makes. The good endings will be where the character overcomes or learns to live with their disorder, and (in some cases) ends up romantically involved with the player. The neutral endings will involve no change in the character. The bad endings depict situations where the character’s disorder takes over her life, leading her to the ultimate negative “consequence” of said disorder. For example, Aura’s (sociopath) bad ending will involve legal consequences for her immoral behaviour.
Today I’ll be discussing the youngest character, Calypso (Caly).
Caly is diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety. When I first started this project, I was unsure if I wanted to touch on suicide, but I ultimately decided that it is a very serious and prominent aspect of mental disorders. Suicide is the natural conclusion to a “bad ending” of someone with severe depression. Part of why I am choosing Caly to represent these disorders is that she is a very sweet, outwardly happy and optimistic person. A large amount of media portrays people with anxiety or depression to be overly moody and very visibly “sad,” which is not always the case. In fact, many times, the people with the brightest smiles can be hurting the most inside.
Looking at all the characters in Do I Date, Caly is objectively the most “likeable” and “innocent” and therefore, in my opinion, the character whose loss of life would strike the player the most. Aurora (PTSD) was another character I considered “killing” for the bad ending, but due to her standoffish attitude and “rough around the edges” personality, I decided that her death would not touch the player in the same way, or at least to the same extent, that Caly’s would.
I feel that I should mention that this game is not meant to be “shocking” for the sake of shock- while there are scenes that are shocking, these scenes are included purely because they are reality- and we often hide reality behind pretty words.
Suicide is obviously a very controversial topic- and that is one of the reasons I was unsure about touching on it. However, this is a game intended to educate and spread information. Including a suicide for one of the characters will give the raw and organic feel that I want. I do not want to sugarcoat anything in this game, since life itself is not sugarcoated.
