In a game called 'The Average
Everyday Adventures of Samantha Browne (Samantha Browne)' it is possible to
explore social anxiety through a simple lens: players help college student
Samantha go down into her public dorm's shared kitchen to make some oatmeal. Stand
up, walk down a hall, make oatmeal. Sounds easy. Yet all along the way, there
are these tiny obstacles in Samantha's mind. She is hungry, but is afraid of
what she will run into when she steps outside of her safe space. Will she have
to talk to other people if she goes to the public kitchen? What will she say if
she does? What if those people talking in their rooms are speaking about her?
Are those girls in the kitchen laughing at something she did? Should she speak
to them? Is she making her oatmeal right? Should she ask for help, or would
people judge her for that? Her mind is a quagmire of ways for life and the
people around her to make her feel bad about herself. The possibilities of
screw-ups and embarrassments swirl in her head. For the player, every decision
also contains a small failure, and the every decision, no matter how small, can
lead to the culmination of Samantha's fears. Had Samantha Browne featured an
optimum path, it would encourage the thought that people with social anxiety
just need to make the right decision in order to get through it. With a
stress-free route, it shows a correct way through the game's challenges. From
Ayres' own experience, this is not what social anxiety feels like. Hiding and
not feeding herself seems the least stressful option. It means she can stay in
a safe spot and hide from her fears. But this will lead to harm to her body.
For players who've saved the universe or fought ancient evils, this should be
easy. How hard is it to make the right decisions and succeed at making a meal?
One of the important aspects of
what Ayres wanted players to experience with Samantha Browne was the simple
ways in which social anxiety affects people. It is something more than regular
nervousness, and affects every aspect of a person's life when they have to
interact with others. A grand moment might have helped players instantly
connect with the fear, but it is the disorder that Ayres wanted players to
experience. Samantha Browne catalogues these failures in various ways, showing
the player a gradually increasing the stress bar, Samantha's inner monologue,
and her movements and pauses. Samantha stops to ask the player what to do
often, which is useful for keeping them engaged, but also shows how often she
has to halt her actions and think them over. Every step to the door and through
the hallway asks the player to consider what they are asking her to do, as she
runs through every possibility that can go wrong. This can stir up several
emotions surrounding the character. It can make players frustrated that they
have to navigate something that seems to be so simple to them, mirroring Ayres'
own frustrations with social anxiety. It can also show the player just how the
mind works in these situations, drowning every decision in a torrent of ways it
can go wrong. No matter what, these decisions make the player feel something
along with Samantha, giving them a little sense of what it is like for her. Part
of social anxiety is acting like you're fine and that none of this is bothering
you, even though your mind is a raging storm of horrible possibilities. In
that, Samantha Browne's exterior works best when it appears happy and fun. The
art style tells the player that this will be a light-hearted romp, and in its
action, it can be. There is still that awful stress that runs beneath
everything, though. The game says that your loved ones, happy as they may
appear, can be hiding some pain within them that makes their lives extremely
difficult. It tells us to look deeper.
More information:
