escapschism

I'd be lying if I said escapschism was a real videogame, and that's fitting because our thoughts don't always tell us the truth either.

It's a story about struggling to protect your inner world while reality is intent on breaking it to pieces.

The game would see us guiding our protagonist safely through their thoughts as their daydreaming worlds they'd usually retreat to are encroached upon by reality, anxiety, depression and dissassociation.

CW for track 08, unravelling: abusive relationships, implied risk of self harm and implied risk of suicide.

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In beginning, our protagonist faces a sense of rising dread, anxiety and guilt. They've disappointed themselves and their therapist and it's time to handle that. Luckily, icanhandleit by pushing those feelings down and escaping into our head for the first time in the game. Of course, it can't last and we feel the anxiety pick away at them until they overwhelmed and end up losingmyselfinaworldofdreams.  I see this being a stage where our protagonist guides us instead - through their pensive meleancholy, the kind of state that can be bought on by just running out of energy to feel bad.

Snapped out of that world by the next message, we find ourselves derailing with our protagonist. Wrapped up in a smothering feeling of overwhelm, shutting down - they're not ready for this level of overthinking so soon. losingtime comes with dissassociation, and our protagonist losing a lot of it here.

When you're crumbling that much, even well intentioned actions can feel alarming. Our protagnist has lost enough time that the people around them are starting to notice, and it's time to get their shit together again. Time for a little escapism to keep reality ticking, they can handle their thoughts later.

Panic. When things we thought we'd buried come back to haunt us. They find themselves unravelling. The seams of their safely marked out zones of thought torn apart. It's time for our climactic finale. Time to fightflightorfreeze. Multiple endings? You know it.

If we guide them to fight or flee, we help them to foundmyselfinaworldofdreams. Things aren't solved by any stretch of the imagination. This is a lifelong fight after all, and we only have this short runtime to guide our protagonist, but things are ok for now, and sometimes that's the best outcome we can aim for.

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escapschism on soundcloud

This is my first Jam! It's also the first time I've ever really tried to string more than one song together, and now I've got 27 minutes of them?! The theme "inside my world" immediately had me thinking about escapism, daydreaming and using our mind to hide from reality. Sadly, we can't stay there forever, and the prospect of making sounds that capture my own struggles was exciting.

I drew inspiration from those RPGMaker/Gamemaker games that get real, and whichever music theory or sound design concept I was learning about on the day.

Thanks to Jameson, bean and Jocelyne for lending their voices to my anxieties, Jameson for the weird and wonderful guitar sampled on unravelling and all of the above & Rolo for putting up with my constant asking for feedback.