Life is a never-ending struggle, full of rising and
falling moods. Elude mirrors this struggle against the rising tide of
depression, and the search for a path to happiness. Yet happiness remains
elusive. Again and again, losing passion for anything in life, you plunge into
depression. Only by continually calling out to the world can you find
experiences that resonate, allowing you to ascend into happiness.
For people who have never experienced it before,
depression is difficult to understand. It is not simply sadness, as many may
think; it is more akin to an all-encompassing hopelessness, a failure to
connect to or derive meaning from the outside world. By tapping into the
experiential aspects of the video game medium, Elude's metaphorical model for
depression serves to bring awareness to the realities of depression by creating
empathy with those who live with depression every day.
Interestingly enough, the word "Elude"
originates from the Latin word "e-ludere" which means "away
from" and is itself derived from the "ludo" with the meanings
"to play" and "to trick."
Elude aims to raise awareness for depression and to
inform about this dangerous illness. It is specifically intended to be used in
a clinical context as part of a psycho-education package to enhance friends'
and relatives' understanding of people suffering from depression about what
their loved ones are going through.
Modeling what depression feels like by contrasting it
with other mood states (normal and happy), Elude portrays depression
metaphorically. The various parts of the game-world represent emotional
landscapes that correspond to different moods with the gameplay changing
according to mood changes. The core gameplay (i.e. "normal mood")
happens in a forest filled with "passion" objects that resonate and
act as power ups when one calls out to them. Only when infused with passion is
it possible to overcome the obstacles on the way to the tree tops, where one
reaches "happiness".
Mood is portrayed in several ways in Elude. The outset of
the game takes place in a forest meant to represent a neutral mood. The goal in
this state is to climb trees and “resonate” with different passions,
represented by ideas and colorful birds. As your mood rises and you resonate
more with your passions, you eventually make it to the treetops and are flying
through the sky. Happiness is an entirely different gameplay experience that
challenges players to keep soaring upward. Eventually, your mood drops, and you
fall through the sky, and literally dragged down into the depths of the earth
by your depression. You must make it through and fight your way back to the top
to find where you true passions lie.
Learning
Elude is meant to raise depression awareness and teach
parents, relatives, and friends of depression victims the real-life dangers of
the disease.
The game is meant to show that depression is an
uncontrollable carrying of moods, not just always being sad or unhappy with one’s
life. There are neutral emotions that are accompanied by very short highs that
end very quickly and, more commonly, deeply disturbing lows that are incredibly
hard to get out of.
It is purely a game about depression awareness, and no
real facts are given, other than quoting a few scholars that just ass to the
mood of the game.
Storytelling
The game takes place in 3 separate areas, representing
the three key emotions; a vibrant, leaf filled sky area where the character
bounces happily petal to petal, a middle area that if full of cathartic-like
statues and dead trees, which you must climb to get to the vibrant happiness
area, and a dark, morbid underworld, that the player randomly gets dragged down
to which is incredibly hard to climb out of.
The player is a very generic looking pale sad person,
probably in their late teens or early twenties. When he speaks to the bird
characters, he glows and slightly smiles.
The story of the game is variable, with highs and lows
being determined by the player, though it is much easier to get dragged down to
unhappy underworld then climb up to the happy over-world, though i believe this
was the designers intent.
Game play
The game play takes from that of basically any other
considerations, giving the player the ability to walk left or right and jump, except
for the ability to emit a groaning helpless like noise. This groan has an area
of effect that, when in the radius of one of the bird characters that sits in
the trees, makes the birds turn from white to green and emit green particles. These
particles, when close to the player, touch the player, cause him to glow, and
add a significant height to the players jump.
The game play in the middle neutral section is all about
staying away from the bottom of the stage and climbing up the limbs of the dead
trees as fast as possible. This is to prevent being sucked down to the
underworld and getting stuck down there for a prolonged period.
When in the upper happy section of the world, the player
jumps higher and higher, bouncing on leaves trying not to descend and instead
ascend as high as possible. However, leaves become scarce as the player gets
higher and higher and thus, at some point, the player will have to drop back
down to the neutral section, rather quickly.
If the player does not ascend the neutral area fast
enough, he will get sucked down into the underworld area, where he moves
incredibly slowly and is constantly sucked deeper and deeper down. Eventually,
the player will encounter one of the helpful birds, which, with the groan and
ump assistance, will allow the player to escape.
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