CONTENT WARNING: Isolation, mental health, personal lack of self-worth
In the spring and summer of 2015, I was going through a rough patch, to say the least. I hesitate to call it depression, because I never spoke to any professionals about it and I don't want to detract from people who do have clinical depression. In retrospect, I can only call it apathy. I lost touch with everything and everyone around me. I holed up in my apartment. I dropped out of school, in all but name. I lived six hours away from my family, and I'd stopped answering their calls. They tried to find other friends who lived in the area to check in with me.
It started with something as simple as a computer problem, I think. I'd upgraded one of my parts and couldn't get it to start up afterwards. That level of failure, of being unable to do the one thing I was supposedly good at, sent me down a dark spiral that took a long, long time to break out of.
Over the summer, I reconnected with the family. We got to talking. They came down to where I lived and took me out of that place for a few months. Got me back home. Pull me out of the darkness and into the light.
I wrote this game, Avskärmad, ("Screened off") in the fall of 2016. A year of pondering on what had happened, both immediately to myself and to others around me. It draws from that pit of misery, of isolation, of feeling completely disinterested and distant from the world around you. Now, five years later, I'm once again stuck in isolation with a broken computer. I'm in a much better place, both mentally and physically, but I was reminded of that darkness once more. I thought of this game, and thought it had a place in the world today. I think you might find it interesting.
A Note on Translation
The title page of the game, including the name, is in Swedish, the original language. Mostly because I really like what I did for the title art, and in part because it's a really good name. The rest of the game has been translated to English.
In the spring and summer of 2015, I was going through a rough patch, to say the least. I hesitate to call it depression, because I never spoke to any professionals about it and I don't want to detract from people who do have clinical depression. In retrospect, I can only call it apathy. I lost touch with everything and everyone around me. I holed up in my apartment. I dropped out of school, in all but name. I lived six hours away from my family, and I'd stopped answering their calls. They tried to find other friends who lived in the area to check in with me.
It started with something as simple as a computer problem, I think. I'd upgraded one of my parts and couldn't get it to start up afterwards. That level of failure, of being unable to do the one thing I was supposedly good at, sent me down a dark spiral that took a long, long time to break out of.
Over the summer, I reconnected with the family. We got to talking. They came down to where I lived and took me out of that place for a few months. Got me back home. Pull me out of the darkness and into the light.
I wrote this game, Avskärmad, ("Screened off") in the fall of 2016. A year of pondering on what had happened, both immediately to myself and to others around me. It draws from that pit of misery, of isolation, of feeling completely disinterested and distant from the world around you. Now, five years later, I'm once again stuck in isolation with a broken computer. I'm in a much better place, both mentally and physically, but I was reminded of that darkness once more. I thought of this game, and thought it had a place in the world today. I think you might find it interesting.
A Note on Translation
The title page of the game, including the name, is in Swedish, the original language. Mostly because I really like what I did for the title art, and in part because it's a really good name. The rest of the game has been translated to English.
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