Xingchen Cao | Pages of Pain: A Diary of Witnessing Domestic Violence

 
Pages of Pain is a storytelling game that offers players a unique opportunity to step into the shoes of a silent witness of domestic violence, and relive their traumatic experiences by reading through the protagonist’s diary. Through a series of mini-games and puzzles, players will be able to empathize with this often-neglected group of victims, helping to shed light on a sensitive topic that affects countless individuals. Apart from the direct victims of domestic violence, witnesses of this form of violence also suffer gravely from it, who usually undergo such experience in their childhood and exhibit higher rates of psychological impairments. However, it is only recently that it has been recognized as a specific form of abuse. Moreover, among all the victims, even though child witnesses have been receiving more attention, adults who were exposed to family violence as children are still “forgotten”. Therefore, this project aims to draw on the rich interactivity and compelling storytelling of games to help audiences be more aware of and better understand the neglected adults who witnessed domestic violence in their childhood, where empathy will be a key factor to bridge the gap and connect both ends.
In this game, the player will play as the protagonist, who is now an adult, to revisit her diary book and reliving all the times when she witnessed her parents’ fights. Every two pages document a specific scene or event that greatly influenced the protagonist, requiring various interactions from the player to help mimic or reveal the protagonist’s thoughts and actions. Only after the tasks are completed will the player be able to turn to the next page. Moreover, the project interweaves three levels of reality to strive for an immersive experience suitable for developing role identification and evoking empathetic responses. There’s the past, represented by the first 18 pages that documents how the protagonist gets affected as a young witness. There’s the reality in the game, represented by the last two pages where the protagonist writes down what is happening at present. Then there’s the “real” reality, where the player can read and write in the actual dairy book virtually owned by the protagonist after finishing the game. Finally, visuals were mostly drawn through Figma and Procreate, different audio files were collaged together to create the soundscape in the seventh scene, and coding was completed through the Javascript libraries: p5.js and p5.sound.js.
The implications of Pages of Pain are manifold. Employing a game format, the project taps into the power of interactive storytelling to engage audiences in a highly immersive and emotive experience. The game also raises important philosophical questions about the nature of pain, suffering, and empathy. By asking players to actively engage with the protagonist’s traumatic experiences, the game challenges conventional notions of what it means to bear witness to domestic violence and abuse. Conceptually, Pages of Pain pushes the boundaries of traditional storytelling, demonstrating the potential for video games to serve as a powerful medium for tackling complex and sensitive subjects, fostering meaningful dialogue and promoting social change.