How Do You Critique A Cry For Help? ('Introvert: A Teenage Simulator')
Sometimes I stumble across a topic that I think will be perfect, only to start researching it and realizing that I have hit something far darker than I initially realized. This was the situation I found myself in while reviewing the indie game Introvert: A Teenage Simulator — a visual novel about a depressed, mute teenager navigating life in school within a poor town.
The trailer instantly told me that this was going to be a difficult piece. The central premise is that you are a new kid who meets someone at school named Chris, a socially awkward teenager who wants friends. Chris tells you that he will shoot up the school if he doesn't make friends in 5 days. I assumed that the game would be a perfect jumping-off point to deconstruct toxic masculinity, but instead, I found an earnest developer trying to tackle worthy topics but just not quite having the expertise to pull them off.
However, the developer, who goes by the name Faris, didn't just make a controversial game but attempted to pull the viewer in and listen to their pain. He wanted to connect with his players, not simply emotionally, but in the real world. That decision not only complicated the artist-viewer relationship but forced us to question if his work was harming the very people he set out to help.
Firstly, I want to say that I don't think it's fair to judge this game by professional standards. Faris was allegedly 19 years old when he made it, so I am not going to nitpick its gameplay elements. I have some minor quibbles with how the UI works, and some sections are simply confusing or unplayable, but I do not doubt that Faris will get better over time. The game is currently free on Steam, so these problems didn't cost me anything but my time.
The main issue I have with this game is how it presents mental health and depression. Throughout its very short runtime, you are given a series of choices to try to "help" Chris, but they basically amount to joining in on bullying him or leaving him alone. It's not a game trying to understand depression or figure out how to give someone the tools or resources to mitigate it, but it seems to be more a manifestation of someone reveling in that dark place.
Introvert: A Teenage Simulator is about focusing on how awful everything is for teenagers nowadays. There is a sense of hopelessness that permeates the entire work. The authority figures are all portrayed as cruel and incompetent. The aesthetic is gray and constantly on the verge of glitching out. There is disturbing imagery like dead insects everywhere you turn. Not only does the game culminate in a potential shooting, but there is a side quest where you are forced to shoot some entity, and, as far as I can tell, you cannot leave the space you are in until you do.
For a game this short, it certainly puts you through the wringer in terms of the number of disturbing sights and situations that you will have to witness. A more skilled developer may have been able to synthesize these elements into something more cohesive. Again, Faris is a developing artist, and there is nothing wrong with that, but given the raw pain and sadness in this work, I am left concerned for his emotional stability. Faris worked through a lot of pain when he made this game, and it shows. As they write in the game's description:
“I made this game cause I was sad so it took a while to be finished, cause you know… It’s hard to work on something when you’re sad.”
Introvert: A Teenage Simulator already seemed like a cry for help to me. It was a way for the artist to project their disappointment into the world and see if anyone would listen. There were a lot of concerning elements already in my first playthrough, and then the developer went the extra mile and pleaded for the player to contact them in real life. If you take your character to the furthest left point in the game, outside of HappyVille, Faris will start talking to you directly:
“Hey you, yes you. Shh, it's going to be okay. Wipe your tears. Take a deep breath. You've been strong for too long. It's time to let everything go. I'm here for you. I'm Faris, the game developer. I'm 19. If you need to talk about anything, just DM me on Twitter and we’ll talk:) here's the link. Ill reply.”
To be frank, it's very common for emotionally vulnerable people to position themselves as authority figures so that they can have an excuse to work on their own issues. For example, psychology research is often jokingly referred to as "me-search" because there is a perception that many enter the field to understand their own mental health concerns. This statement is an exaggeration, but with 81% of psychologists in one study having a diagnosable psychiatric disorder (most of them mild), the stereotype does come from a grain of truth.
Faris seems to be doing the very same thing here, though, unlike therapists who are receiving the training to genuinely help people, he doesn't have the capacity to do this. I have been to Faris' Twitter. He is an overworked young person struggling to handle game design and school at the same time. He doesn't have the resources to therapize depressed, random strangers on the Internet, and he doesn't have the tools for it either. It's a very nice thought, and I applaud him for his intentions, but bad therapy can do a lot of damage, and his decision to do this warrants criticism.
If you want to help people (a worthy goal), you need to ask yourself if the "help" you are providing is actually doing good. Performativity helps no one. Many organizations dealing with mental health issues need money and volunteers. They will give people training and support to handle these issues (see Mental Health Affiliates, Crisis Counselors, Suicide Prevention, etc.). There are also mental health professionals that would be more than willing to collaborate with game developers to create a game to help destigmatize mental disorders and illnesses.
However, if you are hurting, don't confuse your need to get help with a desire to assist others. It doesn't benefit anyone and can do a lot of damage. Intentions are all well and good, but when someone puts out a "cry for help" under the guise of supporting others, we have to be careful in how we handle it. We should be empathetic — as I have attempted to do in this review — but, intentions aside, we shouldn't pretend like the work being put forth is helpful for others suffering from serious mental health problems.
It might be cathartic to wallow in the darkness, but it's not the best for addressing the themes presented in this work. As one Steam reviewer put it: "I'm not sure I can "truly" recommend this game to anyone. It's bleak, depressing, and is a great allegory all in one. This is a great representation of what it is like to be a depressed teen in a small podunk-ass town who isn't popular. I've yet to play it all the way through.…right now, I'm just trying to keep my own positive vibe going…."
This has been a difficult review to write. Faris unquestionably is trying to do some good, and they also, at least from my perspective, seem to be hurting. I hesitated to publish this review at all, thinking it might be better if they churned out more work until they reached a better emotional equilibrium.
Yet that hesitation is valuing Faris' good intentions over the harm they are doing to others by putting this game out in the first place. Introvert: A Teenage Simulator is not an insignificant title. It has received hundreds of reviews on the Steam store (and they have been overwhelmingly positive), so I figured there needed to be some counterbalancing force to give a fair critique, especially since this game has somewhat of an appeal towards depressed people.
While Faris shows great promise as a game developer, I don't think the message in this story is particularly helpful for anyone. It's a dark, messy piece that aimlessly wanders in the wilderness and threatens to pull other people down with it. We shouldn’t be afraid to say so, good intentions or not.