David Antognoli

Assistant Professor of Game Design
Interactive Arts & Media







ABOUT



Brain Agents is a video game in development for iOS and Android mobile devices designed to help youths develop trauma resilience. The game is developed in partnership with the non-profit agency Stryv 365 as part of its commitment towards implementing trauma-informed programming to diverse groups of students to alleviate and offer nonclinical solutions to toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences. 

 

Brain Agents uses the trauma education concept of “brain alarm” as a narrative and gameplay motif for delivering trauma-informed education and resilience practice to players.  

 

In the game’s narrative, the player is on spaceship that has encountered a part organic, part digital alien presence that feeds on chaos and stress. The alien has taken over the ship’s security system and afflicted the minds of the cryo-sleeping passengers with anxiety and negative thoughts. The player must avoid tripping the alarms of the ship’s compromised security mechanisms. 

 

By returning the crew’s positive thoughts that have been scattered by the alien, and by practicing trauma resilience exercises such as focused breathing, cognitive reframing, and coping statements, the player can rescue the minds of the crew and seal away the chaos alien. 

 

The following excerpt from Stryv 365’s peak team curriculum helps illuminate the brain alarm metaphor and how Brain Agents connects with it: 

 

How does trauma affect you? 

  • Trauma can change your brain. 

  • Trauma can make you brain alarmed (like a fire alarm). 

  • The alarm may tell you to run away, freeze, or fight back. 

  • Trauma may cause you to overreact (see danger when it is not there). 

  • Trauma alarm may cause you to react to the past instead of the present. 


Mentoring points 

  • Trauma is scientific like technology. 

  • You can do things to “rewire” your brain. 

  • You can reverse the effects of trauma. We call this “resilience and it is a power you can get if you exercise your brain the right way. 





FRAMING THE PROJECT


In my creative and scholarly agenda, I seek to create work that recontextualizes the medium of video games beyond the culturally dominant forms dictated by commercial motivations and the “gamer” metanarrative. I am excited by projects that show audiences the possibility of games beyond children’s diversions and “timewasters.”  
 
While I am typically drawn to game projects that explore the avantgarde, literary, or public art potential of the medium, it is important to realize the pedagogical and awareness-raising power of games through their unique mix of narrative, simulation, and interactivity.  
 
This is the mode that Brain Agents operates in. The game’s narrative immerses players in a scenario where trauma, chaos, anxiety, and stress are embodied as an antagonistPlayers are inserted into a hero’s journey where they can triumph over this adversary. But this content is not delivered passively. Instead, players learn resilience and coping strategies, and then actually practice them to succeed at the game’s quests. Further, the game uses conversations with mentoring non-player characters where the player has agency to choose how to respond. 
 
A multitude of fascinating design questions have surfaced during the development of Brain AgentsWhile triggering the in-game security alarms is intended as a metaphor for brain alarm, we must be sensitive about triggering trauma responses. We want to train the player to use coping and resilience strategies during such responses, yet we don’t want the player to associate these strategies with failure. Originally the game’s antagonist was labeled as a computer virus, raising questions about connecting the game adversary with the real-life trauma of the pandemic. While it may be empowering to overcome a virus in fantasy, we ultimately steered away from the virus terminology to avoid triggering any trauma associated with our present moment. 
 
With that said, Brain Agents feels like an important project for me in our current contextTrauma and anxiety have been hallmarks of the pandemic, creating a need for this kind of work now more than ever. Stryv 365 normally supports youths with face to face, trauma-informed programming in education, athletics, and activities. Brain Agents extends this curriculum to a broader audience in a safe, virtual contextIt is extremely gratifying to have the opportunity to apply my discipline of game design to this cause.