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In How to Survive a Haunting, you play as Stranger, an entity plagued by ghosts who try to possess you, and take over your home and your life. Luckily, you have come across a mysterious old journal, written by a man only referred to as The Journalkeeper. He has spent his life studying ghosts, and made it his mission to record everything he knew about how to defend yourself from them, and how to tame them
On the journey to taming your ghosts, you will represent your accomplishments through tokens, keep a magical deck of cards that help you ward off unearthly possessions, and log your adventure in a journal. The Journalkeeper will walk you through each stage of this process, and teach you how to customize the game to fit your specific needs
Haunting is a gamified mental health aid, designed to help people learn more about how their body works, adopt a challenge mindset, and achieve post-traumatic growth. It is designed with a light horror aesthetic (though no actual scares in the game) to meet people in the mental space that they’re at, and not make light of extremely difficult circumstances. It is geared towards the recovery of those with trauma and (c)PTSD
artwork by @prose-n-scripts
Haunting was inspired by my own journey of recovery and exploration with gamification and tabletop roleplaying games as I struggled for years with PTSD, dysphoria, mental health issues, and more. Games were a safe space for me, and allowed me to grow and heal more than almost anything else. With games, I was able to put the power of recover into my own hands, go at my own pace, and focus on what was important to me
I wanted to create Haunting to help all the people who may find traditional therapy unhelpful, intimidating, inaccessible, or unsafe. Or for others who find therapy helpful but need more structure and guidance outside of sessions. Haunting explores many different ways to help your brain and your body, explains the science and psychology behind its advice in cited research, and never breaks character as a helpful old man giving advice on ghosts
It is geared entirely around building self-efficacy, building resilience, and achieving post-traumatic growth
The funding goal is $3500. This original goal funds for consultant Hayley Twyman Brack, a therapist and avid gamer, to go over the game and make sure everything is cited from the latest peer-reviewed research, and make sure all the psychology advice is up to date on the latest therapeutic practices
I am pulling the knowledge in this game both from my own recovery journey, and my last two years as a social worker working with a large variety of clients with disability and mental health challenges
If we can reach a little further than our original goal, the game will be fully illustrated by wonderful artist Vicky @prose-n-scripts
