External Links


Play Online
IFComp 2015 release

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

Seeking Ataraxia

by Glass Rat Media profile

2015

About the Story

A simulation of what it's like to live with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, balancing life, relationships and neurosis on your quest toward peace.


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

Undo Restart Restore
Seeking Ataraxia doesn't explicitly tell what its goals are. It's billed only as "a game about anxiety" but it seems to work quite effectively as public education. I certainly learned some things that I didn't previously know about e.g. how OCD can manifest itself. It describes the symptoms personally but neutrally, without preaching or overexplaining. It lets the readers come to their own conclusions about what kind of effect mental health issues have on the protagonist's life.
See the full review

Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
Seeking Ataraxia is about the difficulties of living with OCD. In particular, the protagonist has a hard time ignoring or blocking out certain kinds of distraction; studying while the living room is a mess proves to be nearly impossible, for instance.

I found this pretty easy to relate to even though I don’t, to the best of my knowledge, share the condition. One of the odd side effects for me of playing games about mental health is that I start to hypochondriacally wonder whether I also exhibit a few of the symptoms. But of course a lot of these symptoms are a strengthening of mental habits most people have to some degree, not necessarily something that is wholly different in kind. It was informative to see this at work.
See the full review

Elizabeth, If
I really like the idea of games or other interactive works to help people experience what it’s like to live with anxiety or other mental issues. I think this is a medium that has the potential to get us into the heads of people who think differently than we do, and I think that understanding people who think differently than we do is incredibly important for being good humans in society.
See the full review

Renga in Blue
It’s pretty short and I feel like the intent is to just give the perspective of being inside the OCD mind. Given that, Seeking Ataraxia nailed its target: the part where the main character panics trying to find Chris’s hiding cat and imagines it dead or the part where a study session is foiled by the looming mess outside strike me as some of the most realistic scenes of this competition.
See the full review

Page Update History

  v.5: 21-Nov-2015 23:35 - CMG (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
Changed author
v.4: 20-Nov-2015 11:28 - GlassRat
Changed external review links
v.3: 16-Nov-2015 00:22 - classicaljunkie
Changed download links
v.2: 02-Oct-2015 00:07 - dutchmule
Changed cover art
v.1: 01-Oct-2015 15:26 - Brendan Patrick Hennessy
Created page