For a man with a noted tendency towards bold proclamations, US President Barack Obama’s latest statement’s regarding the problem of an “empathy deficit” in modern America is perhaps his most brazen.A subjective claim no doubt, and more likely than not a simple piece of partisan rhetoric attempting to characterise the divide between left and right as a titanic battle between the forces of good and evil, but it strangely hits home. In one cleverly chosen buzz phrase Obama encapsulates an unspoken fear amongst human beings today: that we really are becoming progressively more horrid as a species, whether that is a perceived decline in people helping old ladies with their shopping or the increasing levels of death and destruction human beings can now inflict upon one another, it may be said to be a natural reaction of all people at any time in history, but it is certainly a notion that sticks.A tad ironically, you don’t have to go far with this Empathy Deficit strand of logic before you end up deep in some very conservative territory. The blame for a lot of the issues facing our modern society almost inevitably end up at the door of the rapid improvements in technology over the past twenty or thirty years. Modern gadgetry has been collared for everything from desensitising us to violence, making our men fat, lazy and childlike whilst at the same time also turning our women into vacuous, self-obsessives with anorexia.
However, of all media platforms, none have got quite so much flak as video gaming. Although film, music, and television haven’t been without their share of controversy, it is video games that have by far borne the brunt of the ire of the “think of the children” school of campaign groups and activists. Indeed it is has almost now become a conventionally held view of the “it stands to reason” or “my old man always said” demographic amongst anyone over the age of, say, forty that video games are the major catalyst of our society’s irrevocable slide towards cyber punk, bloodthirsty techno-anarchy à la Bladerunner.
So what will Jack Thompson, prominent American anti-gaming activist and the rest of the anti-video games mob make of the work being done by video game developers Ryan Green and Josh Larson on their project, That Dragon, Cancer? The game depicts the emotional and harrowing journey of a father dealing with his son’s terminal cancer, based on Green’s experiences with his four year old son Joel.
That Dragon, Cancer is at the forefront of a new movement of empathetic video games which seek to give the player an understanding of issues like depression, suicide, and as previously mentioned, cancer. In this video gaming has carried on a proud tradition from fiction and art of what it feels like to exist in the margins, and with video games as arguably our most interactive and immersive medium, the results could in theory be the most realistic and accurate attempt at giving people an insight into these worlds.
Not exactly light gaming then, but to think of these projects as conventional “games” as such wouldn’t be entirely fair to the intentions of the developers. Projects like That Dragon, Cancer and Depression Quest are not meant to be fun or enjoyable experiences, and they certainly don’t pull their punches by lightening the mood for the player. These “games” are perhaps best described by their fast growing moniker of “other people simulators.” They aim to represent for you as accurately as they can what it’s like to be another person, whose plight from an outside perspective would otherwise be virtually impossible to totally understand.
It’s commonly heard that to empathize with others you have to imagine what it would be like to “walk a mile in their shoes”. But can you really know it’s like to inhabit the shoes of a depressive, or the father of a child with cancer? Do we, who have never experienced such a thing, have the capacity to visualize the gravity of their plight? Games like these may be our best shot.
Although That Dragon, Cancer has yet to be released to the public, in research for this article I spent several hours playing Depression Quest, a free online game in the vein of a “choose your own adventure” book. Before you begin, the game offers you the option of paying a voluntary sum to play it, but the game doesn’t force this upon you, holding true to its position as both an educational game and a charitable project.
The game does well to highlight the seeming impossibility of escape from the cycle of depression. For every situation it poses you it taunts you with the clear “right” answer putting a thick red line through it, showing you that in your depressive state you are incapable of doing the rational thing, with each choice you are given seeming equally risky and destructive. The game is hard, but it is possible to succeed and change the player character’s life for the better, showing that no matter how dark depression may be, there is always hope.
Depression Quest is a beautifully written, immersive game which really does its best to transport you into the mind of a depressive; the feelings of disconnection, despair and dysfunction are portrayed vividly and powerfully throughout the game’s various scenarios. It’s also incredibly clever, adapting to your previous actions and taking you on a real feeling of a journey with the player. For example at one point the game posed me the choice of adopting a kitten from a co-worker. This posed me with a conundrum. On the one hand, I reasoned adopting the kitten would help the character, with the game hinting it might make him a little less lonely around the apartment, but also suggesting that the kitten might prove a lot of responsibility to take care of, could my character cope with accidentally killing his kitten, Lenny Small style.
Ultimately I opted to keep the kitten, which in a charming passage then promptly went to sleep at the end of the player character’s bed. But what was perhaps most clever was that it was then written into the rest of the game, frequently referenced in later situations, and managing to raise a wry smile from me every time it was mentioned, which is massively to the game’s credit.
As for That Dragon, Cancer although the game has not released any sort of playable content to the public, a demo has been released to major figures within the industry and content shown at the Games Developers Conference this year. Hardcore Games Developer Brian Ramage was reportedly moved to tears after five minutes playing the demo, which is set in a hospital intensive care unit as the father tries to comfort his child, who is in considerable pain.
The demo had elicited such a powerful reaction from those who have played it that the Internet is now seemingly awash with hardened game critics singing its praises and telling of the emotion they felt playing it.
One of the constant themes they mention is the game’s hopeful message, and the ceaseless optimism of its creators. Despite the persistently grim nature of the demo the consistent theme that runs throughout is that despite all of his many trials Joel Green is still alive. At first glance, this may seem difficult to appreciate as a truly uplifting message, but as several commentators have acknowledged, on reflection it becomes apparent what the developers mean. When confronted by something so unbelievably dark as terminal cancer, the real victory is not “winning”, because you can’t; winning is not losing, winning is that he is still alive, and that gives you hope, hope that he keeps on carrying on.
In doing this one simple thing, Ryan Green and the rest of the That Dragon, Cancer development team have created an incredibly profound new format, a game which you cannot win, but which has within it more hope than any one of its Triple-A mainstream competitors.
Of course, the story doesn’t stop at video games. Empathy and audience participation are becoming increasingly prevalent in other media, from theatre to television. More than ever, artists are using the public to create projects that are meant to be experienced, to be felt.
UK theatre company Punchdrunk are leading the way in what they call “a game changing form of immersive theatre.” Their shows combine classic narratives with enormous sets and audience participation to create a performance that both tells a story and forces the viewer to, as their description aptly puts it, immerse themselves in their surroundings.
The most recent production, Sleep No More, is a perfect example of what they do. The play is something of an amalgamation of Shakespeare and Hitchcock, putting a disquieting psychological spin on the classic tragedy of Macbeth. It’s currently performed in a warehouse in New York that has been remodeled as a hotel, and everyone from the actors to the participants are given free reign over the set.
Sleep No More is a three-hour performance during which the audience, their identities hidden behind masks, can do what they want. They are allowed to follow actors around, search the house for whatever subplot, clue, or orgy might be lying behind whichever door, or they might even get pulled into the story by a character looking for help.
Reading through people’s experiences of the show, it was clear that while everyone, understandably, had different reactions, they were all very emotional. Between the fear of being whisked away into a room of blood-covered men in the middle of an orgy, and the sense of pity from an actor personally grieving on an audience member’s shoulder, the performance brings out an entire spectrum of feelings. Other reviewers complained about feeling anxious over missing a vital clue or a part of the plot. But isn’t that point? Aren’t we, as humans, often anxious about missed opportunities and regrets? Isn’t that exactly what the people in the story would be feeling?
Plays like the ones Punchdrunk put on are prime examples of the power of firsthand experiences.
Although they are by no means a substitute for conventional storytelling or filmmaking, they—like That Dragon, Cancer—open up new possibilities for both going through and witnessing events that we would otherwise only be aware of on a superficial level. They also let us experience fundamental human emotions much more strongly than any passive night at the opera.
Recently, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, on a break from starring in every possible Hollywood blockbuster, has applied this inclusive approach to the actual creation of art. In March, his production company, HitRecord, announced plans for a crowd sourced television project. The programme, tentatively scheduled for production in August, is a variety series that showcases the work of everyone who contributes. And everyone can contribute. On the HitRecord homepage (www.hitrecord.org) you’re greeted by the all too familiar friendly face of what seemed like every big budget movie of 2012 with the bold invitation, “Wanna work with us?” Anyone can submit their ideas, whether it’s a short film, a song, a poem, anything. Contributors are also allowed, encouraged even, to take other people’s work and put their own finishing touches on them. At its heart, it’s a massive artistic playground.
The TV show hopes to bring out the best in everyone and create collaborative projects that reflect the ideas and feelings of anyone who wants to be heard.
The outcome could be spectacular: music written by a 15 year-old kid in the Yukon and a 67 year-old grandmother somewhere in the Persian Gulf could potentially be broadcast to the world. People who would otherwise never interact could have the opportunity to work and learn from each other; all the while having their artwork see the light of day. Gordon-Levitt could help people from all walks of life come together on a creative level and produce something that reflects the many facets of humanity.
At least that’s the hope and the goal here. We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out, but the intention itself raises an important point. There are people out there who are actively working to create an artistic medium that isn’t controlled by the same bureaucrats that cancelled Firefly but by the efforts of those who want to participate in a global project. The end goal is a better understanding of how we as a species, as a society, and as a world think and feel.
Good art is supposed to not just be something you enjoy at the time, but should stick with you and in some way enrich you as a person; it should change the way you think, make you re-evaluate yourself, and change your life for the better. Games like Depression Quest and That Dragon, Cancer certainly seem to do that.
Their task is to give the player a new perspective, new understanding. Meanwhile, immersive and inclusive projects such as Sleep No More and HitRecord give us the opportunity to interact with people and situations that we otherwise would never experience. In all this, we are given the opportunity to develop both our understanding of our own feelings, and our empathy for others. If, as Carl Sagan suggests, “understanding is joyous”, by that token, so must be the rise in empathetic art.