{"id":5063,"date":"2025-12-03T02:51:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T02:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/?p=5063"},"modified":"2026-01-10T17:11:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T17:11:52","slug":"subject-sensitivity-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/2025\/12\/03\/subject-sensitivity-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Subject Sensitivity Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The subject for this game is a little girl dealing with emotional neglect who copes by daydreaming maladaptively. The parents do not physically harm her or threaten her, but they are often preoccupied with their other daily activities and arguments to pay much attention to the protagonist most days. They flippantly buy her toys and other craft supplies to stop her whining, but her emotional needs, such as confiding in them, seeking advice, and decent affection, are neglected. She often isolates herself, whether at school or in her room, just thinking about her characters and the world she’s created. It is then that the player is introduced to the main part of the story, and her coping mechanism: her world and the characters within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took a definition of Emotional Neglect from the Child Abuse chapter of the 2012 Encyclopedia of Human Behaviour (Second Edition)<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Emotional neglect can be defined as a relationship pattern in which an individual\u2019s affectional needs are consistently disregarded, ignored, invalidated, or unappreciated by a significant other… Parents are highly ambivalent about their children\u2019s needs, particularly when their children are hurting, crying, or looking for emotional support.

They may be so preoccupied with their own needs that they never consider the children\u2019s point of view. Alternatively, they may feel so angry and resentful about having children that they simply ignore them.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When researching for the story of this character, I wanted it to make sense and all tie in. I decided to research more into what emotional neglect can lead to, and that led to Maladaptive Daydreaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Maladaptive daydreaming [MD] is a behavior where a person spends an excessive amount of time daydreaming, often becoming immersed in their imagination. This behavior is usually a coping mechanism in people who have mental health conditions like anxiety. For some people, this behavior disrupts work, hobbies or friendships and relationships.”
Cleveland Clinic Definition<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This definition is similar to the angle I wanted to go for. The protagonist’s behaviour is due to her parents’ emotional neglect, which caused her to create a fantasy world. She lines up her dolls, crafts and supplies to help imagine this world. During the game events, she is imagining this world while playing with her regular set-up. The player only sees the imaginary world in the main events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How Maladaptive Daydreaming presents in Children & how it relates to the characters’ behaviour<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Maladaptive daydreaming is often observed in “creative youngsters under pressure” (Somer et al., 2020). Rather than immersive daydreaming, which includes regular daydreaming without interference in life, Maladaptive daydreaming is detrimental to the social life of the dreamer. They will confuse reality for fiction, struggle with and forget daily tasks, and sometimes they do not want to daydream in the first place. Neglecting parents participated in “minimal interchange of emotional information” with their children in interactions, so they could not emotionally assist with their children (Bousha & Twentyman, 2001). In Somer et al.’s 2016 study, they concluded that “vivid fantasy activity might facilitate coping with adverse family circumstances in childhood”. The participants in the study reported a “stronger need” to escape to the fantasy world if they had experienced traumatic childhood events or feelings of loneliness and isolation (Somer et al., 2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MC’s trauma makes it so she escapes to the game world, and as she is almost always lonely, this coincides with the symptoms of maladaptive daydreamers. I really wanted to incorporate elements of my second game idea, where the child has an active imagination when she is feeling happy. I wanted to turn that on its head and make it so that it could fit into a darker plotline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vocabulary.com states that Paracosms are “a prolonged fantasy world invented by children; can have a definite geography and language, and history”, which is much like the world we are planning to make. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, I looked at a YouTube video by Sarah & Chutney, which described the differences between MD and Paracosms, where MD is often detrimental to social life, while Paracosms are usually part of a wider immersive daydreaming. MD can also be addictive; these fantasies can “fill the [emotional] gap” where needs are not met. Some people may experience Maladaptive daydreaming about their paracosms as well (Sarah & Chutney, 2025). These types of Paracosms, known as post-traumatic paracosms, are a form of escapism, while regular Paracosms are just a form of expressing creativity and can be healthily integrated into real life (Sarah & Chutney, 2025). This is why I wanted the player to be able to make two choices in the end – whether to try and confront the reality they are escaping from, or ignore it and return to the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ethical Questions about Subject Matter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are 3 questions I wanted to ask myself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • How will you tackle a topic you haven’t personally experienced? (Parental Divorce)<\/strong>\n
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    • I discussed this with Adam, a guest speaker and a few other people during one of the table talks. I decided to make the topic of divorce implied instead of being in the players’ faces. Even though I plan to add warnings for it, I don’t think it will be straight-up mentioned in the game.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Divorce is a sensitive subject, as it is the only way a marriage can legally end, and some marriages end in animosity. As I hone the script for the game, I will make sure to do my research. How do the parents speak to each other? Would they be careless and use pejoratives around the child? Would they try to “hide” it, even though it is obvious that something is wrong with the child? Would one parent try to get the child to be on their “side”?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • These are all things that can be hinted at in the dialogue, and even the world the girl creates. Hayley wanted to add symbolism in the world and minigames of things the girl wishes her life could be like. It would be great to hide little lore bites for the player to find.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • How will this be explored throughout the game?<\/strong>\n
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      • 1) The conversation mechanics throughout the minigames. The dolls may speak to you strangely, or conversations from outside leak into the world, and start to “crack” it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • 2) If the scope goes right, the ending will have 2 choices. When the MC snap out of the dream, a vignette surrounds her, crowding her mind. The choices are: go back to the daydream or confront reality. Both choices will cause the game to end, but they will have their unique dialogues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • How will you sort out this sensitive topic?<\/strong>\n
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        • Adding content warnings at the beginning. In the title screen, players will see a warning about the subject matter that could be explored. It has to be something that wouldn’t spoil the contents of the game too much, but not go over the heads of those who do not want to play a game around this theme. I looked on Reddit for some advice on this and found a useful thread of phrases we could use.\n
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          • ‘This game contains some scenes which may be seen as upsetting or offensive.’<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • ‘This game contains information that might be sensitive or triggering to people who have experienced [emotional neglect, dissociation and parental difficulties themselves or in their environment]’<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

            Whether the game’s content ends up exploring this detail in depth will be determined with our final scope, but I’d still like to consider the sensitive angle we are going for. Overall, this research has helped me to understand how to approach and write the characters as the narrative designer for the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            References<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

            Ludwig, S. and Rostain, A. (2009). Emotional Neglect – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics<\/em>. [online] Sciencedirect.com. Available at: https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/topics\/psychology\/emotional-neglect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Reddit.com. (2020). Reddit – The heart of the internet<\/em>. [online] Available at: https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/writing\/comments\/fhd498\/writing_a_content_warning_without_spoiling_a_twist\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Scione.com. (2024). Childhood Emotional Maltreatment and Maladaptive Daydreaming Among Adolescents: Mediating Role of Emotional Processing<\/em>. [online] Available at: https:\/\/pjpr.scione.com\/cms\/fulltext.php?id=892.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u200cS\u00e1ndor, A., Bug\u00e1n, A., Nagy, A., Nagy, N., T\u00f3th-Merza, K. and Moln\u00e1r, J. (2021). Childhood traumatization and dissociative experiences among maladaptive and normal daydreamers in a Hungarian sample. Current Psychology<\/em>. doi:https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s12144-021-02223-3<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Sarah & Chutney (2025).\u00a0How Maladaptive Daydreaming Links to OCD & Paracosms: My Experience<\/em>. [online] YouTube. Available at: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d6N4Y9Idj4c.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            The subject for this game is a little girl dealing with emotional neglect who copes by daydreaming maladaptively. The parents do not physically harm her or threaten her, but they are often preoccupied with their other daily activities and arguments to pay much attention to the protagonist most days. They flippantly buy her toys and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phase-4","category-research-ideation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5431,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions\/5431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ea3g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}