A video game that helps us understand loneliness

Step into artist Cornelia Geppert's visually stunning video game "Sea of Solitude," which explores how battling the "monsters" of loneliness and self-doubt can help us better grapple with the complexity and struggles of mental health.

Have you ever felt lonely?

The urge of wanting
to connect with people,

but you seem to have no one
you really would want to contact?

Or, it's a Friday night
and you want to be with others,

but you have no energy to go out,
so instead you sit at home all evening,

watch Netflix

and feel more alone than ever?

You feel like a monster

between humans that know how to function.

This is what loneliness felt like to me.

So I'm an artist,

and I process my emotional world
by sharing my feelings through my art.

If you share your feelings with someone,

and they understand
and share those feelings too,

you create an emotional
and deep connection.

This is why you can be surrounded
by hundreds of people,

jump from one candidate to the next,

but still feel lonely.

It's because these deeper connections
haven't been made.

I was an always-happy child.

I think we nearly have
no single photo of me

where I don't smile broadly
or laugh or joke around.

And this went on until ...

well, it's still the case.

But I had many friend groups

up until, as a young adult,
I moved to another city

for my first job as a comic artist.

And like so many young,
thriving people all over the planet,

I concentrated all my energy
into my work life.

But, if you spend, like, 90 percent
of your daily capacity

trying to succeed at work,

of course there is nothing left

to take care of all the other
important aspects in your life,

like your human relationships.

Nourishing friendships
as an adult is work.

You need to be consistent with connecting.

You need to be open,
you need to be honest.

And this is all I struggled with,

because I tend to camouflage
my real feelings

by trying to appear always happy

and trying to make
everyone else happy, too,

by trying to fix their problems.

And I know a lot of us are guilty of this,

because it's an easy way to not
think about your own issues.

Isn't it?

Hmm? Hmm? Hmm?

(Laughter)

OK.

The turning point came

when I fell into an emotionally
abusive relationship

just a few years ago.

He isolated me

and left me feeling more alone than ever.

It was the lowest point in my life,

but it was also my wake-up call,

because it was the first time

that I really felt loneliness.

Many artists put
their feelings into their art.

There are endless books,
movies, paintings, music,

all filled with the real
emotion of an artist.

So, as an artist myself, I did the same.

I shared my feelings.

I wanted to help people
cope with loneliness.

I wanted, yeah, to make them
understand it,

to really experience it through my art

in the form of an interactive story,

a video game.

So, in our game --

we called it "Sea of Solitude" --

you are a person named Kay,

who is suffering from
such strong loneliness

that her inner feelings --

the anger,

the feeling of hopelessness,
worthlessness --

turn to the outside,

and she becomes a monster.

The game -- well, Kay --

is actually a representation of me

and the path I went through
to overcome my struggles.

The game plays, actually, in Kay's mind,

so you walk through a world
that is flooded by her tears,

and the weather is changing by her mood,

how her mood is changing.

And, well, the only thing Kay wears,

the only thing,

is her backpack.

It's the baggage we all carry
throughout our life.

And Kay doesn't know how to cope
with her emotions in the right way,

so her backpack becomes bigger and bigger

until it bursts,

and she finally is forced
to overcome her own struggles.

In our story, we present many different
manifestations of loneliness.

Loneliness through
social exclusion is very common.

In our game, the brother of Kay
got bullied in his school,

and he just wants to hide and fly away.

And we portray him as a huge bird monster
surrounded by thick fog.

The player has to actually
walk through his school

and experience, really feel the harm,

that the brother had been through,

because for a long time,
nobody really listens to him.

But the very moment
friends and family start to listen,

the first step towards overcoming
this form of loneliness had been made.

We also show loneliness in relationships,

like when parents just stay together
for the sake of their kids

but end up hurting the entire family.

We put the player literally in between
the two parents while they are fighting,

and you get hurt in the middle.

They don't even see that their daughter,
Kay, is right there

until she breaks down.

We also show loneliness
through mental health issues,

with the boyfriend of Kay,
who suffers from depression

and shows that sometimes

it is most important to focus
on your own well-being first.

The boyfriend also tends
to camouflage his feelings,

so he appears like a lone,
shiny white wolf.

But the moment he starts
to interact with his girlfriend, Kay,

the mask falls off,

and we see the black dog beneath it:

depression.

Sometimes we put on a smile

instead of dealing
with the issues at hand,

and that can ultimately make it worse,

affect the people around us

and damage our relationships.

So Kay herself

we portray as ripped apart
into her basic emotions.

Some help you,

some are trying to stop you.

Self-Doubt is a huge creature,

always telling Kay how worthless she is

and that she should just give up.

Like in real life,

Self-Doubt is blocking the path,

and it seems impossible to overcome it.

Destroying the omnipresence
of Self-Doubt is a slow process.

But in the game,
you can slowly, like, shrink her,

so she turns from self-doubt

to actually healthy doubt,

and you can finally trust her advice.

We also show Self-Destruction.

It's a huge monster

always lurking nearby
under the water's surface.

Self-Destruction is actually
the main antagonist of the game,

and she is always trying to drown you
in the ocean of tears.

But, when she actually drowns you,

you wake up just a few moments [before],

and you have a chance to progress again.

We wanted to show

that we all go through hardships
in our life, we all do.

But if you at least, like, stand up
and try to move forward,

you are very likely to make it
through your struggle,

step by step.

Joy is something that Kay
cannot really embrace or touch.

It's always something in the distance.

We portrayed Joy
as a child version of Kay,

with a yellow raincoat,

so she is invulnerable
to the ocean of tears.

But Joy can also turn into obsession

and start to be actually harmful for Kay,

like when she starts obsessing
over her boyfriend.

Joy will not turn back to normal
until Kay realizes

that her happiness
should not depend on anybody else

but herself.

So our monsters appear huge and scary,

but if you overcome your reluctance
and approach them,

you soon see that they
are no monsters at all,

but just fragile beings that are simply
overwhelmed by what life throws at them.

All of those emotions,

be it self-doubt or even self-destruction,

don't completely vanish in our game.

The key message is to not only
chase for joy or happiness

but to embrace all your emotions

and bring them into balance,

being OK with sometimes not being OK.

Everyone has their own
loneliness story to tell.

This realization changed
everything for me.

Being much more open with my emotions

and concentrating much more
on my private life,

my friends, my family.

When we released the game,

literally thousands of fans wrote us,

all sharing their stories with us

and telling us they felt
not so alone anymore

just because they played our game.

Many people wrote us that they felt hope

for a better future for themselves
for the first time in decades.

Many wrote us that they seek therapy now,

just because they played our game

and felt hopeful to overcome
their own struggles.

Our game is not a therapy.

It's not meant to be a therapy.

It's just my friends and me
sharing our stories

through our art, video games.

But we are so deeply thankful
for every single message

that people feel better,

just because we shared
our story with them.

So ...

I didn't completely overcome
my urge to help others.

But I don't want to overcome it anymore.

I love it.

I just needed to bring it
to a healthy size,

so it doesn't stand in the way
of deeper relationships anymore,

but even help me to connect with people.

So, if you have an inner monster

that is born out of negative emotions,

it is not only the goal
to kill that monster

but to understand that we humans
are complex beings.

Look at what part of your life
is so big that others fall short.

Look at what emotions you barely feel

or maybe feel too much

and move towards lowering those peaks.

Most of all, it's about understanding

that all the wide range
of emotions and struggles

makes us what we are:

humans.

Thank you.

(Applause)