Y'all wanna know what I REALLY love about "Edna & Harvey: The Breakout"?
It's set in a mental hospital.
It starts out in a padded cell with a spooky soundtrack and a seemingly evil guy guarding you.
And the moment you leave that cell, the game becomes weirdly cozy. Full of warm colours. The hospital staff is stern, but mostly friendly. With two notable exception, none of the patients pose a threat except to themselves, and those exceptions are quite literally locked up in isolation cells, and it's even implied that neither of these are permanent arrangements because THAT NOT HOW YOU WOULD TREAT A MENTALLY UNSTABLE PERSON!
Does the game feature ableist stereotypes? Of course it does, even I, who will defend this game to the death, would never deny that. I mean, the main character talks to an imaginary friend in the form of a plushie that, towards the end, is implied to be "her evil side". But it portrays the actual realities of being in a psych ward much better than most media, and it's not even a particularly realistic psych ward.
Like yeah, it is just "hanging out with a bunch of other weird people".
Peter and Petra remind me of actual couples I've encountered during my times in psych wards. The group therapy session that is essentially just one big easter egg featuring the developers looks and feels like actual group therapy I've been part of. Aluman is a guy I've literally met, minus the get-up, that older patient who's kinda always been there, who will just hit you with weirdly profound things if you talk to him long enough. And yes, I've developed heated but ultimately unserious rivalries with other patients over board games, and yes of COURSE we played it up a little by crowning someone the king.
Like I said, it's not a game without faults or flaws, but it captures that feeling of a mental hospital stay better than anything else I've ever played, watched, read or listened to. And just for that, it'll always have a place in my heart.
Anyways did y'all hear that Poki is working on games again???
