Book part:

First Person Mental Illness: Digitale Geisteskrankheit als immersive Selbsterfahrung

This article examines the increasing ludic implementation of mental illnesses in digital games. It especially focuses on display techniques and the benefits and drawbacks of games that utilize a first- or third-person view to immerse the player into the mental illnesses of their protagonists. This sort of player involvement marks a new trend that can be observed in recent games and will play an important role in future game development. Instead of merely stigmatizing the mentally ill as evil antagonists, head-mounted virtual reality displays like the Oculus Rift are able to simulate their perception and thus create a form of self-awareness for the player. LAYERS OF FEAR (2016) and SENUA'S SACRIFICE (2017) are used as case examples.