Wayward Strand is a recreation set in a hospital — particularly, an aged care ward, the place lots of the sufferers are combating age-related well being points, like dementia.
Forward of the sport’s July twenty first launch, we spoke to the sport’s narrative co-director, Georgia Symons, about what it is like to write down a couple of delicate topic, and the way video games may help gamers be taught extra about aged healthcare and different heavy subjects with out trivialising the realities.
Nintendo Life: Why did you determine to make a recreation set in a hospital?
Georgia Symons, Narrative Co-Director: At its coronary heart, Wayward Strand is a recreation about care. And as a staff, we’re particularly keen on how our caring relationships with each other are impacted by issues like structural energy, the financial system, and different social components. So a hospital – particularly an aged care ward – was the proper place to discover these themes of care in a typically compromising context.
What storylines are there in Wayward Strand that take care of the aged, specifically dementia, Alzheimer’s, and different age-related sicknesses?
Virtually all of our storylines function older characters! As a result of the sport is about in an aged care ward, 6 of our predominant characters are sufferers on that ward. Our intention with Wayward Strand is to painting these older characters of their full expertise of life, displaying that they’ve wealthy inside worlds. So they might wrestle with again ache or forgetfulness, however additionally they have friendships with different sufferers, and with employees, and their very own pursuits, their very own needs, and so forth.
Considered one of our characters, Tomi, lives with a type of dementia, and is believed by the employees of the hospital to be fully non-verbal. With out giving an excessive amount of away, she has storylines that relate to her former profession, her persevering with love of vegetation, and her connection to household on the opposite facet of the world.
What was your strategy to writing about dementia sensitively?
While we now have some staff members whose members of the family have lived with dementia, nobody on our staff has that direct expertise. And so, earlier than locking our scripts in, we needed to talk with somebody who had lived expertise with dementia, and get their perspective on the sport.
The fantastic Carly Findlay put us in contact with Kate Swaffer, CEO and co-founder of Dementia Alliance Worldwide. Kate lives with dementia, and consulted with us on the portrayal of the character of Tomi. In a recreation that options a lot speaking, we had been confronted with the problem of portraying this non-verbal character with equal sensitivity and dignity to her fellow sufferers within the hospital.
However Kate had some unbelievable solutions for the way we may higher perceive and painting Tomi’s expertise, in addition to discovering a chance within the recreation to inform a contrasting story of dementia, to place Tomi’s expertise in a bit extra context.
What different analysis did you do earlier than beginning on Wayward Strand?
A lot! The sport is about within the Nineteen Seventies, in regional Victoria, on an airship, and options characters from internationally, in addition to a Bunurong character. Fortunately, our staff adore analysis, and our course of concerned every little thing from desktop analysis to area journeys to years-long session relationships with individuals whose lived expertise deeply knowledgeable our recreation.
Have you ever performed video games like Spiritfarer, To The Moon, and Earlier than I Neglect, which additionally take care of dementia, demise, and reminiscence? In that case, what do you consider how these video games dealt with the subject?
Personally (Georgia talking, Narrative co-director), of those video games, I’ve solely performed Spiritfarer. I discovered it very shifting! Maybe due to the themes I’ve been desirous about in Wayward Strand, I used to be much less within the portrayal of demise, and extra within the portrayal of care. Among the spirits who come aboard your boat are assholes. They’re immodest they usually’re demanding – and also you care for them anyway.
Our recreation may be very totally different to Spiritfarer, however we now have a few of that very same essence – that concept of making characters who’re actual individuals, and inspiring the participant to consider when and the way care will be carried out for many who we’d not need to look after, or who may not be capable of reciprocate in any manner.
Video games are able to being instruments for empathy and schooling, however additionally they threat trivialising issues – how do you keep away from that?
We have now a minimum of one very clear-cut technique for avoiding the trivialisation of great subjects in our recreation: make it much less game-y. A recreation set in a hospital could be horrendously trivialising in the event you obtained some type of factors for performing the care, or if treating somebody’s most cancers was a winnable quest, or one thing like that.
Our recreation design is keen on how participant company is just not at all times a given, and the way the participant character doesn’t should really feel central to the world to ensure that the sport to perform. In Wayward Strand, you may look after the characters, and you may assist them with small issues. However you may’t remedy their sickness, and nor are you able to acquire factors to earn their respect.
How do you write characters which have company, persona, and dignity, whereas additionally portraying their critical sicknesses?
Our session processes have been an enormous a part of this. With such a heterogeneous ensemble forged, we had been at all times going to be writing very far exterior our personal lived expertise. And so, from day one, we now have invested money and time into speaking with individuals whose lived expertise is nearer to that of our characters.
And for every of the affected person characters, we make sure that we painting them absolutely by understanding three issues: who had been they earlier than their sickness? Who’re they now? And what’s their angle in the direction of their sickness? These questions may help us strike the stability between portraying the gravity of those sicknesses, with out making the sickness into its personal persona trait which eclipses the human being.
Wayward Strand is about in 1978 – how totally different was medical therapy of the aged again then, and the way has this knowledgeable the sport?
Therapy was profoundly totally different, and we’ve confronted an actual problem in deciding find out how to render this distinction. For one, medical professionals had a lot much less info to go on. The sorts of exams and scans which can be potential now simply weren’t round then. This meant that medical professionals needed to be extra attuned to their sufferers as individuals, and extra interactive with their sufferers’ our bodies.
It additionally means, fairly merely, that medical outcomes had been typically worse. We have now just a few storylines which painting this – sufferers affected by sicknesses which in the present day could be thought-about minor or preventable. However we even have some tales which foreshadow inquiries to do with high quality of life and end-of-life care the place attitudes have advanced within the intervening years.
Do you’ve private experiences with dementia on the staff? In that case, how did that affect the making of Wayward Strand?
A few of us have members of the family who’ve lived with dementia, and this influenced our preliminary need to incorporate a personality with dementia. However our conversations with our unbelievable marketing consultant Kate Swaffer had been positively probably the most illuminating a part of the method of making this character.
What do you hope individuals can be taught or uncover about dementia via your recreation and others?
Dementia is an sickness that’s plagued with plenty of misconceptions. Folks dwelling with dementia are sometimes perceived as having misplaced their personhood – together with the dignity and rights that attend that personhood – very early of their sickness.
Similar to all our different characters, Tomi is a person with a historical past, along with her personal pursuits, and with a wealthy inside world. We hope that gamers of our recreation who’re dwelling with dementia really feel some consolation or companionship from the sport as a complete and from Tomi specifically; and that different gamers can sit with Tomi and mirror on the various methods they’ve of referring to anybody of their life dwelling with dementia.
Thanks to Georgia for talking to us, and to the staff for organising the interview! Wayward Strand will likely be out on the Nintendo Change eShop on July twenty first, 2022.
