Why Psychological Recovery is a Roguelike
Content warning! This article contains discussion of mental health complications, particularly depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
Roguelikes (or Procedural Death Labyrinths, which is my new favorite term) are an odd genre of video games, in that they are generally defined by the mechanics of one game, Rogue (1980). While many of the specifics vary from game to game, there are three particular characteristics that generally remain consistent. First, the game consists of procedurally generated “dungeons” or levels. Second, there are a variety of different weapons and power-ups you can pick up to customize your character. And third, permadeath is an essential component of the player’s experience. There are no savepoints or revives (or at least, significantly less than would be available in most other dungeon-crawls), only a brutal end, after which you have to start from the beginning again to keep playing.
The following week, we were given four examples of Roguelikes: Hades, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, and The Binding of Isaac. I chose to play Isaac, and wow, did that inspire me to dive much deeper into my psyche than I expected to for this class.
From the beginning, I was out of my depth. After showing you an unsettling opening cutscene about Isaac’s murderous mother– made only more unsettling with simple, childlike drawings– you’re suddenly in the game. Isaac doesn’t give you much explanation of anything around you, just a simple graphic in the starting room that shows the most basic features. In order to learn anything, you have to start playing.
Along the way, you begin to figure things out and get more help. You can find power-ups, coins, and consumable items in various rooms and from killing various monsters. Granted, unless you have a wiki page pulled up, you don’t know what the power-ups do until you take them… and sometimes they turn out to be more inconvenient than useful.
Of course, I did have some more help than most new players. I was lucky to be able to stream this game to people I know who had already played it (shoutout to my girlfriend for her near-encyclopedic knowledge of power-ups). As frustrating as this game was at times, it was still easier to manage with help. There were many times where I wanted to quit, but was encouraged to keep going. Which brings me to my next point:
Somewhere around my 30th run of Isaac, I remember unexpectedly dying in the first level of the game and thinking to myself, Why haven’t I gotten better already? That thought gave me pause, particularly because it’s not an unusual one for me. Usually, though, it comes with a lot more baggage: missed deadlines, sensory overload, or a day spent doing absolutely nothing at all. It felt strange to have such a strong emotional reaction to a game; not just the story of the game, but the gameplay itself. I realized that the cyclical nature of the game and the frustrating lack of “real” progress were a little too similar to some of my fears about my own life.
Many mental illnesses are similarly cyclical. There may be periods where everything seems okay, or like life is progressing normally, but there will always be another time where you hit a wall. Whether that wall is a panic attack, or a depressive episode, or a trigger of PTSD, any of it can cause your life to come to a sudden standstill. For me, this is the metaphorical permadeath; while you don’t actually die, it certainly feels like you do. From there, all you can do is start over. You feel weak and helpless all over again, and you have to struggle to get yourself back to where you once were.
But just like in any roguelike, you aren’t truly starting from the beginning. You may have lost your items, but you’re equipped with new knowledge, instincts, and a sense of your own limits. You’ll find a support system to keep you going, whether that’s your friends or a forum thread. You’ll take things more carefully next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. In a game, you’ll learn what each of the different power-ups does and whether they fit with your playstyle. In life, you’ll learn new coping strategies and whether or not they work for you. Sometimes, you just learn to accept your fate: you don’t have enough hearts to last through this boss fight, and you don’t have enough “spoons” left to go to that social event. Even if some runs end more quickly than you wanted them to, you’re still making progress.
While I tried to generalize this account to most roguelikes, there’s a lot more I could say about how the specific aesthetic of Isaac matches up with my mental health recovery theory. For one thing, the first weapon you start with (and spend the most time using) is quite literally your own tears. The only way you can survive is to cry and let your emotions out. The whole game is flavored with the innocence of childhood, while the player takes the adult-looking-back perspective of “oh God, that was actually really messed up”. Some of the items you can get in-game are literal pills. Trying every mystery pill only to get a debuff gave me unfortunate flashbacks to my own medication journey, but you just have to keep trying them. Eventually, you’ll find one that works out, even if it doesn’t do exactly what you wanted.
Edmund McMillen’s endings to Binding of Isaac aren’t quite as optimistic as I am, but for my intents and purposes, the author is dead. Besides, if you subscribe to the theory that Isaac survived but is going through his own psychological recovery cycle– reliving his trauma about what could have gone wrong in the past– then every ending is canon.
Originally published here on October 10, 2021 for the class "Critical Videogame Studies" at the University of Chicago.
