Looking for a psychiatrist consultant for a video game?

[Kolosos]

Hello forum! First off, let me start by apologizing if this is the wrong place to put a thread like this. I found this forum by using google and decided i'd start my search here.

Basically, i'm a game designer and i'm working on a game that revolves around a psychiatrist-turned-patient that is locked up in an asylum where he used to work.

The game starts when the good doctor decides to secure himself a pension by robbing all the rich eccentrics who decided to build their houses around the asylum. Part of the game will be a side-scrolling 2d platformer, with the player controlling the doctor around the houses, avoiding traps and traversing hallways.

The OTHER part of the game(the one you would be interested in) is when the doctor encounters an enemy. Instead of standard fighting mechanics, this game uses date-sim-like mechanics. What this means is, instead of racking up combos and pushing buttons, the player is given a variety of choices to choose from in order to talk to the enemy. The goal is to break the enemy down on an emotional level.

So just like a patient and a psychiatrist, the player gets to analyze and converse with the enemy(typically guards) in order to either get some information out of the enemy or drive them into an emotional breakdown. And this is where the consultant would come in. I need an actual psychiatrist so that the interactions are believable, and the player actually believes that the things the doctor says and does can lead to someone breaking down emotionally(like in the MOVIES, not like in real life).

And that's about the gist of it. Right now me and the programmer are working on a prototype so soon i'll have something to show, other than just words upon words. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and hopefully, someone is interested in helping me out ^_^

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[nitemagi]

I'm sure you will find someone to help. It's just too bad your game will be perpetuating so many biased, prejudicial, and frankly false stereotypes about psychiatry.

 

[Ibid]

The Asylum (Psychiatric Clinic for Abused Cuddly Toys)

http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/The_Asylum_(Psychiatric_Clinic_for_Abused_Cuddly_Toys)

Play on the link below.

http://www.parapluesch.de/whiskystore/test.htm

 

[Daedra22]

I'm sure you will find someone to help. It's just too bad your game will be perpetuating so many biased, prejudicial, and frankly false stereotypes about psychiatry.

Exactly what I was thinking : /

 

[PsychBA]

I'm sure you will find someone to help. It's just too bad your game will be perpetuating so many biased, prejudicial, and frankly false stereotypes about psychiatry.

you sound quite helpless and hopeless. Consider seeing a therapist?

 

[Kolosos]

I'm sure you will find someone to help. It's just too bad your game will be perpetuating so many biased, prejudicial, and frankly false stereotypes about psychiatry.

Well you're right about that, but i suppose stereotypes can't be avoided when creating something like a game or a movie. Now let me be clear, i don't want the game, or even the interactions in it to be realistic, i just want them to be believable. After all, the game's world itself is far from realistic.

Hopefully this will clear your doubts that this game is going to "perpetuate biased, prejudical and false stereotypes about psychiatry.".


And also, unlike that game Ibid posted, the player won't be diagnosing or treating anything, but simply leading the enemy into an emotional weak spot which, since the characters are fictional, can be anything and doesn't have to be anything like real people.

And in the end, there is in fact going to be a disclaimer in the game so that other people don't think that the interactions and mind tricks used in the game are actually applicable in real life.

 

[nitemagi]

Well you're right about that, but i suppose stereotypes can't be avoided when creating something like a game or a movie. Now let me be clear, i don't want the game, or even the interactions in it to be realistic, i just want them to be believable. After all, the game's world itself is far from realistic.

The presumption is that one must sacrifice the realistic to be dramatic, which I pose is inaccurate. Though many fall into it.

Your game still displays the psychiatrist as parasitic, robbing rich eccentrics. Also, "asylum" is quite dated. If you want to use that term, set the game at least 60-70 years ago.

 

[dl2dp2]

Part of the game will be a side-scrolling 2d platformer, with the player controlling the doctor around the houses, avoiding traps and traversing hallways.

This sounds a bit antiquated in terms of gaming design. There are GNU 3-D engines now.

I think a much more interest premise would be a strategy game to emulate the process managing a state hospital, forensic facility and a prison. If someone can produce that I'd be the first to play it.

If you want to do an adventure game the story should probably be more engaging. A single person action game with a psychiatrist as the primary role just doesn't seem right, unless for he was trained as a navy seal or something.

I.e. this premise:

"Dr. Sam Fisher was a covert agent for the NSA before completing Medical School at Prestigious Private U, and following his longtime fascination with the human brain, into the field of psychiatry. The dangerous elements however, decided to lock him up involuntarily. With his extensive knowledge of psychotropic drugs, DSM criteria and stealth skills, manages to escape the maximum security forensic hospital in Kuwait and exposes his enemy's plots and saves the world along the way."

Yah I'd play that.

 

[digitlnoize]

This sounds like a pretty lame game. So you TALK to people to defeat them? Lame. Did Mario talk to Bowser? Did Link and Ganondorf settle their differences with a friendly chat? Did Samus kill Mother Brain with kindness?

Lame.

If you want a really cool psych-oriented game, go check out Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube. You had a "Sanity Meter" and the higher it went (from being exposed to strange, evil creatures or situations), the more disconnected your character's experience got from reality. You could be walking down a corridor and start having limbs hacked off by an invisible being, and you're freaking out, running away from nothing, then it turns out it was all in your mind and nothing happened.

They would break the 4th wall as well, and things would happen that would REALLY scare you. Like, if you went to save the game, it would say "ERROR. All Game Data Lost. Please press restart." Crap like that. Great, great, great game.

Yours...not so much...from the sound of it. I'd suggest heading back to the drawing board. I can see some potential, but you need a serious twist and some development. 2D is also pretty much dead, unless it's a phone game, and that's almost done.

 

[Kolosos]

Well now, i see most of the replies have missed the point of the thread and the game, sort of. I don't want to seem rude, but this point of this thread was to find a psychiatrist willing to help me out, not for users to evaluate or critique the game itself. With that said, thank you all for your input and critique about the game! I've carefully read each and every one of the posts so far and i've given them quite alot of thought. And at the end, i decided NOT to change the game one bit, despite your heavy issues with it. I mean, i understand that you don't like the game, and i respect your opinion, but since this is an indie project, i'm designing the game first and foremost for myself and for the rest of the team, not for others. So since my team and i like the game ALOT, i see no reason to change it.

Аlso, just to let everyone know: Since not one but two psychiatrists have offered to help out, i have no more need for this thread. So If some mod could lock up this thread, that would be nice

 

[BritTrooper]

Why don't you make the character a LCSW or a mid level provider/PhD , that way the game would be more believable and also you could get a consultant more easily . Not sure exactly how many modern gamers would like the whole talking guards in an emotional breakdown, noting the famous Stanford prison experiment its much more believable for it to be the other way round.

 

[whopper]

My younger brother is a video game developer. I'll say this. In defense of video game makers, in fact pretty much anyone in media entertainment, there is hardly ever such a thing as someone trying to make a movie that is 100% accurate and educational. To some degree there has to be a wow factor that often times is based on impulsive, sexy, exciting things.

Those military commercials where soldiers jump into a zone and it makes it look like it's sci fi, yeah there's some truth to it but the reality of being in the military is not like the commercials.

I'm not interested in working on the project, but I'd be a little less judgmental about it. To the video game designer, if you want a psychiatrist working with you on it, expect to get a guy who's likely going to want to bill you a lot of money for his/her work, and will more likely have an agenda that's not along the lines of simply making your product as entertaining as possible.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

My younger brother is a video game developer. I'll say this. In defense of video game makers, in fact pretty much anyone in media entertainment, there is hardly ever such a thing as someone trying to make a movie that is 100% accurate and educational. To some degree there has to be a wow factor that often times is based on impulsive, sexy, exciting things.
....

According to Hollywood, Bad Psychiatrists sleep with their patients, then kill them; whereas Good Psychiatrists merely sleep with their patients.

 

[whopper]

whereas Good Psychiatrists merely sleep with their patients.

True.

I've yet to see a presentation of a psychiatrist that's been realistic.

I watched Harry's Law for the first time a few weeks ago because it's set in my current town, Cincinnati. At least the episodes I saw was heavily mental health related...e.g. a defendant addicted to sleeping pills, with memory lapses, and had a son with bipolar disorder.

Hardly any of it was realistic. The actor playing the bipolar disordered guy acted strange in a manner that was nowhere near consistent with bipolar disorder. I guess he figured, "mental disorder, I need to act strange."

Even the legal stuff was way off with how the local laws are.

Oh well, still very entertaining.