If you’re unfamiliar with gaming terminology, this is a great place to start. The reason this analogy works so well is because there are explicit parallels that can be drawn between Mental Health and gaming mechanics.
Even at the most basic level, games, especially role playing games (RPGs), have a real-to-life component to them. In role playing games, you create a character and then play as that character. This assumption of character puts you into the context and mindset of that character, and so when we draw parallels between the character and you, we can say that what happens to your character in game, is like what happens to you in real life. From there, we have a blank canvas to create a world around you. This world building, therefore, can create a really special context to talk about more difficult real-life topics, like mental health, in a way that is understandable and approachable. That’s what makes this analogy so special.
Definitions
Lets take a moment to define some of the gaming terms I use in the theory, and why they are so important.
World Building.
World building is the term writers use to describe the process of creating the world in which their characters live. I have borrowed extensively from the world building that is inherent to RPGs, in particular the usage of classes, status bars, status effects, buffs, and debuffs.
Class.
A Class is a job or profession that is commonly used to differentiate abilities of different characters. This is only important because different classes use different resources to perform tasks and abilities. This analogy uses Mana, and so our characters are of the spell-caster class, hence why the characters look like wizards!
Status Bar.
A Status Bar is a visual bar representing the amount of resources that your character has. There are usually two: one that denotes how much health you have and one that denotes how much power you have to perform abilities.
HP.
HP, short for Hit Points or Health Points, is denoted by a status bar and is unique from the Mana or resource bar. Every character has one, regardless of what class you play. The illustrations keep the HP bar mostly because it makes the graphic instantly recognizable. Without it, the Mana bar would look mostly like a line and it loses its context and meaning.
That said, mental illnesses can have an impact on your physical health, too! Psychological symptoms can manifest as physical symptoms, like migraines or stomach aches, and some mental illnesses trick the brain into thinking that self-harm is the answer. While this is a bit heavy to “comic-ize” it is something that this analogy can explain within the context of gaming terminology.
Mana.
Mana is an in-game resource that is denoted by its own status bar. It’s used by caster classes such as Mages, Warlocks, and Healers. They use this resource to power and cast their spells and abilities. In the comic, I illustrated a popular mage spell that can summon and cast fireballs.
There are other resources that are used in RPGs but most of them carry additional meaning in the real world. For example, Warriors use Rage, Rogues use Energy, and Hunters use Focus. While these are all valid resources in game, their meaning becomes muddled once it leaves the context of the game. That is what makes casting classes and Mana so interesting and makes this analogy work as well as it does. Mana doesn’t have a meaning outside of game and therefore is the strongest resource candidate to be used for this theory. Using Mana allows us to bypass existing meaning and potential baggage and create something pretty special.
Status Effects.
Status effects are any condition that hinders or modifies a characters abilities. These are often temporary modifications to the character’s abilities and resolve after a certain time, or are removed by another ability.
Debuff.
A debuff is a status effect that negatively impacts a character in game. It’s a pretty broad definition, and therefore provides quite a bit of freedom to use it as we need to for the analogy to work within the context of mental health and illnesses. Debuffs vary from game to game, but the same principal applies: when you want to hinder a player or make an encounter more difficult, you can introduce debuffs to increase the challenge.
Using the broad definition of a debuff, we can create our own negative statuses to illustrate the cost of a mental illness. Since mental illness can affect every person differently, the debuff system is perfect for illustrating how one person might have one debuff, and the next has eight. In a fight in game, you could have any number of debuffs applied to a character at a given time and the same holds true here.
Buff.
A buff works similar to a debuff, but instead of a negative status effect, it’s a positive one. While the original theory doesn’t utilize the buff system, I thought it prudent to add it here because it fits.
Think of it this way, if a mental illness can apply debuffs at any time, we can apply buffs to counteract it. We can also illustrate the application of buffs through activities that are beneficial to the character; and in our case, beneficial to combating mental health issues!