What it is about
[UPDATE! New layout. Pages and spreads!] Were they a smoker? Not wear sunscreen? Eat a lot of red meat? Did they have unprotected sex? Share needles? Who were they with? How long have they had that cough? Who might have they infected? The what and the why: This is a solo-journaling game that’s an exploration of guilt and internalized stigma related to illness, with cancer, AIDS, and tuberculosis as the foundational afflictions informing the game. So much of my personal experiences*, readings (start with Susan Sontag's Illness as a Metaphor and AIDS as a Metaphor) ,and gleanings from academic conferences I based this on come back to statements and questions like this: I didn’t expect to feel this way. Does anybody else feel this? Am I the only one? From both the afflicted and their caregivers. My goal, done the best way I know how: a “What you may expect…” that’s shorter but more open-ended than a memoir, while more personal than bullet point guidelines in a pamphlet or website. The how: You’re Sick (and It’s Your Fault) is derived from Chris Bissette’s Wretched & Alone engine but in addition to a more realistic–and unfortunately, more commonplace–setting, there’s the air of judgment, that the player character is responsible for their predicament. It’s not pleasant (NB: I put the safety section before anything else), but I hope it will be useful, even just to glance through. I am still looking for co-creators to help with more specified versions of this in terms of disease, language, location. For example, my year spent as a semi-active member the Facebook tuberculosis support group trusting their Tagalog/English translating pretty much qualifies me to [THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK BECAUSE IT SHOWCASES MY QUALIFICATIONS WRT DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THAT EXPERIENCE] *(and yes, if I ever do a full release, there may be a fully annotated version in the manner of https://blinkingbirchgames.itch.io/anamnesis )
