Surviving Opioids is the story of a life addicted to opioids. It depicts the struggles and emotions one must face, and overcome, while recovering from addiction. How that story unfolds is a result of the choices players make.
The game demo begins with you waking up in moderate opioid withdrawal to recognise your life is in disarray. Rent is due, you’re broke, and on the verge of being fired for always calling in sick. You must take action quickly to get your affairs in order and regain balance in life. Should you choose to ignore your problems and drift along the path of least resistance, the unravelling of your life will accelerate at an alarming rate.
New unique starting scenarios will be added to the game over time. However, you will always have the choice to forge your own path. As in life, recovery is only possible when YOU are ready and willing to commit to your success.
The game takes place in the fictional city of Skoden. An urban landscape sprawling with suffering addicts, petty crime, and decaying infrastructure. Its layout and landmarks are inspired by Sudbury, Ontario. The hometown of Surviving Opioids’ creator Patrick Gervais. Presented as it exists in his dreams, a distorted alternate reality where the past and present collide.
The demo will only have one playable character. As the game grows, more diversity will be introduced. Each Character will have a unique set of barriers to overcome. Allowing players to explore the impact mental illness, discrimination, disabilities, and chronic pain have on addiction. These could be considered increasing difficulty modes.
You control a character who is addicted to opioids and explore an open city while trying to survive one day at a time. While in withdrawal your mind is stuck in a rut of anger, depression and anxiety which limits your options while interacting with NPCs (non-playable characters). Around every corner lurk triggering situations that fuel your negative emotions and hijack your behaviour causing you to dive deeper into addiction. Drug use allows you to subdue your feelings for a short time giving you the illusion of more options in life. Yet this comes with a risk of overdose and obvious impairment that NPCs will react to. The goal is to find help, learn skills to get your life back on track, and rebuild your capacity to experience positive emotions without using drugs.
The gameplay mostly consists of walking around, having conversations with NPCs, committing your character to tasks and managing mental and physical stats. While committed to tasks like going to work, exercising, or even sleeping, the gameplay shifts to an interactive overlay that lets you guide your character's state of mind. If the right state of mind is achieved, time passes quickly and the task is completed in seconds. If it isn't, time drags on and the character may abandon the task completely. At any point, if the character's stats align with a state of distress, you lose control of the character and it acts according to its most pressing needs in a sort of autopilot mode. As the player pushes their character to strive for rehabilitation, skills are learned that can be used to maintain or regain control in difficult situations.
The core gameplay mechanics are inspired by one of the key principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): the relationship between thoughts, emotions and actions. As you move your character through the game, each situation you encounter generates thoughts based on your current emotional state. How you interact with these thoughts determines your available action and dialogue options. The outcomes of those choices impact your emotions, and the cycle continues. Every other aspect of the game builds on this concept.
The intended target audience consists of three groups:
The first is people who are currently struggling with addiction and considering recovery but don't know where to start or feel stuck in their progress.
The second is people who have loved ones who struggle with addiction and want to understand what they are going through.
The third is teens and young adults who are at high risk of being introduced to opioids but don't fully understand the extent to which they can take over your life and control your thoughts. This group doesn't seem to resonate well with traditional anti-drug campaigns; however, video games tend to get their attention much easier.
The intention is to help as many people as possible. With that in mind, the game is currently being developed for android and iOS mobile devices, and will be free to play. A desktop version will also be released with slightly modified controls. Releasing the game on other gaming consoles may be a future possibility.
The Surviving Opioids game is intentionally designed with a sombre tone. Addiction is not a lighthearted topic. Furthermore while in active addiction, people tend to feel quite disillusioned and untrusting of content that attempts to present addiction and recovery through rose colored glasses. Surviving Opioids strives to deliver a raw visceral experience.
Ensuring this game helps people and doesn't make things worse is extremely important. So far, most of the concepts in the game are derived from content provided by addiction specialists and recovery programs. Controversial topics like if medical marijuana is beneficial or detrimental in opioid recovery are being avoided for now. Research and consultation with experts will be an integral part of completing the entire game. This includes feedback from other people in recovery with an aim to include as many possible paths to recovery as possible. Everyone is different, there is no one size fits all method of recovery.