Proposal for the game:
- Mental Block (working title) -
The player character is shown to be a disembodied floating brain, which hovers over a floating lab coat. The player character starts with the brain only, and throughout the game he has to regain the different parts of his body.
The different parts of the body symbolize the different parts of the human psyche. These split on “primal drives” and on “primal defence mechanisms”. The three primal drives are the eyes (which symbolize the fear), the heart (which symbolizes the love) and the guts (which symbolize the anger). To each of these primal drives, the psyche develops defence mechanisms. In the face of fear, humans observe and rationalize the world around it, understanding it to let the fear go away (this is signified by the brain). In the face of love, humans develop the ability to withstand stress and provide support not only for themselves but also for the others, they become resistant (this is signified by the skeleton). Finally, in the face of anger, humans develop the ability to react actively and often violently to outside stimulus that incite said anger (this is signified by the musculature). Finally, the skin, as the ability to provide warmth to others and to show inner emotions to others in a healthy way, represents a healthy human being which will nurture others in their relationship, instead of burdening them down.
In the game, the lack of existence of each of the nine elements signifies something.
-Non-existent eyes: Unwillingness to acknowledge one's fear, inability to perceive the world as it is.
-Non-existent heart: Unwillingness to bond oneself to anything or anybody, bitterness, lack of “sense” in life.
-Non-existent guts: Unwillingness to acknowledge one's anger, lack of drive towards changing the outside world, powerlessness.
-Non-existent brain: Inability to form a critical judgement of the world.
-Non-existent skeleton: Inability to withstand stress, abuse, frustration.
-Non-existent musculature: Inability to take action on the world to change it to suit your needs.
As it is, the non-existent drives show a character's unwillingness to accept part of their humanity. Once they accept it, they will be able to develop the defence mechanism of said drive.
It bears saying, in the face of traumatizing experiences, humans tend to either develop the defence mechanism affected (heal from it), or avoid the grief negating the primal drive behind it (disappearing the primal drive and the accompanying defence mechanism).
Finally, the system works on the basis that each individual bases his psyche on the prevalence of one of the primal drives (and their corresponding defence mechanism). This means that in the face of traumatizing experiences, different people will react in different ways, always shielding themselves behind the defence mechanism of their prevalent primal drive, which cannot dissappear (if it disappears, it means they've gone insane beyond recovery). And thus, fear-motivated individuals will become thinkers (floating brains), love-motivated individuals will become martyrs (walking skeletons) and anger-motivated individuals will become warriors (slimmering masses of raw muscle tissue).
I've had this proposal on the works for some time now (a month, maybe?). Is it any good?