Theoria
Theoria is a video game concept focused on my personal experiences with mental illness. The protagonist, Ari, undergoes a contemplative and strategic quest to rid the world of the encroaching yarn and the monsters they spawn from. Upon their defeat, Ari obtains a new ability that allows her to traverse more of her environment and take down harder foes.
Ari's Design
Ari's design is based off the first character I made when I was first starting to post my art online. She was the conduit between myself ad those I was interacting with, and came to represent how I viewed myself as a beginner artist. Now she represents the essence of my childhood. While she got a bit of an update, her design remains true to when she was first made.
The Woods
Growing up in suburban Virginia, I was fortunate to have the woods in my backyard. The forest became an escape from a confusing childhood as I experience debilitating mental illness and the challenges associated with it, while lacking an awareness of vocabulary to describe it. Ari's woods are her home, and represent a safety being encroached upon by an unknown threat.
Ancient City
Once home to an ancient civilization, this city in the sky has been abandoned in all it's splendor long ago. The beast of Gender Dysphoria lives here. The ancient city represents my grapple with identifying as an agender individual while belonging to a faith so focused on binary gender.
Old Woods
Located deep within the woods of Ari's home is an area of forest she's never been to before, where everything seems frozen in time. Here, Ari must confront a part of her home she was never aware of. Having undergone traumatic events during my childhood, and only realizing their effects on me now have caused me to look more closely at my childhood. In the Old Woods resides the beast of Trauma; where trauma occurs it can feel as if we are frozen in time.
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is an umbrella term for 3 different types of disorders: type I, type II, and cyclothymia. Bipolar disorder type I, which s is my diagnosis, is characterized by 3 intense emotional periods called episodes. These are manic, depressive, and mixed. Mania is considered to be the "highest of highs" and depression the "lowest of lows". When these episodes combine, they are called mixed episodes.
All music © Jeff Meacham