Inpatient: A Psychiatric Story

This game reminds me in length and quality of a hosted Choice of Games commercial game. It has similar amounts of text per choice, and has 9 different relationships you can work on.

The main difference between this and choice of games is that there are frequently just 2 choices, while CoG tends to have 3 or more choices.

However, the author did a good job at making the game interesting by not making it clear which, if any, option is the 'right' option. I think this game provided a very clear picture of what a psych ward might be like. I chose to ally with a friend with borderline personality disorder.

I read some of the novel, and it felt somewhat intrusive in that I was being told how to feel rather than contextualizing the experience for myself—which immediately made me think that the arguments presented in the novel are one-sided and biased. The realities of going to the hospital are not pleasant. Often there is a negative connotation attached to the experience long before a patient enters the building, and no amount of care will change this feeling. From what I read, it felt like a concentrated dose of negative experiences which I don’t believe is reasonable nor representative of a single visit.

No system is perfect, but I feel that this portrayal is unfair to the Ontario health care system. People in this industry dedicate their lives to help patients because they believe in the work that they do. In reality, we should feel privileged for the access to services that are offered through OHIP and other social assistance programs—a luxury that our closest neighbouring country struggles to hold onto.

In summation, the premise of this work is focused on a first world concern in a fairly generous socialist system relative to other societies the world over. What is more, one person’s interpretation of a service environment is not representative of an entire system being broken or in crisis; take caution when absorbing media that advertise it as such.

Sincerely,

An active user of public sponsored mental health care services in Ontario

Initially, the prose isn't very exciting. It's hard to get hooked into the game at first. I didn't really feel anything. The experience as described in this adventure and my experiences with similar situations are very different. The game does pick up, but still isn't enjoyable. Neither as a player nor as someone who has been in the situation presented.