The inaugural Mental Health Game Jam has concluded and the Grand Prize winner in the game Inner Room. With the win, developer byebyesama takes home $25,000. The studio was able to beat 100 other games to claim the top prize.
The Mental Health Game Jam is organized by DeepWell Digital Therapeutics in partnership with Global Game Jam. It brings together a community of global developers to come up with valuable therapeutic experiences through the use of games. This event was created in the hopes of developing games that can address stress, anxiety, and depression, and foster support and understanding for individuals facing mental health challenges.
Dealing with Depression
The Grand Prize winner Inner Room is a game where you play three days of lockdown and take on the role of a person dealing with depression, where his place of true elaboration is in his dreams. When awake, the main character needs to complete the most mundane of tasks. While other games would usually need players to do them in one click, this game requires the use of the whole keyboard.
Save the Environment
Second place is Biotopîco, developed by Everyday Lemonade, which received $10,000 from the event. In this game, players get to grow real trees through the use of the Oxygen resource obtained from their breath practice. The studio has partnered with OneTreePlanted.org to plant an actual physical tree on behalf of the player for every digital tree grown.
Experiencing Anxiety
In third place is Fumble by ComfyDev, which won $5,000. It’s a puzzle game that focuses on the struggle to talk. It tells the story of an individual suffering from social anxiety without really realizing it. The gameplay serves as a playable metaphor for social anxiety and offers what the studio believes is one possible representation of what it feels like to have this particular condition.
Other Winners
In addition to the top three, the other awards are:
- Most Educational
- Game: Balance It Out
- Developer: lukeamer
- Most Innovative
- Game: Can You?
- Developer: devbymark
- Most Engaging
- Game: Mockingzen
- Developer: havana24
- Most Accessible
- Game: Bottles
- Developer: zrrz111
- Best Art
- Game: Mood Farm
- Developer: Peregon
- Best Audio
- Game: Inner Room
- Developer: byebyesama
In a statement, DeepWell DTx co-founder Mike Wilson shared that they believe in the power of games and how they can help treat mental illnesses. He added that the gaming community recognizes that games can be good for players and they are excited to take the first steps in creating games that not only entertain but also have therapeutic value.
What do you think of this event?
