Hues of Health and Horror

Visualising Uncanny Adolescent Mental Health through Video Game Space Design 

Abstract

This paper explores the intersection of mental health representation and spatial design in the American indie RPG game Omori (2020). As stigma surrounding mental illness gradually decreases in some cultural contexts, notably the United States, Omori’s production context, video games increasingly incorporate more nuanced depictions of mental health. Omori exemplifies this shift by visualising the inner psychological struggles of its adolescent protagonist Sunny through its distinctive spatial aesthetics and horror elements. The game employs a dual-world structure – Faraway Town and the dissociative dream world Headspace – alongside two liminal spaces, White Space and Black Space, to convey stages of trauma, repression, and coping. This analysis draws on van Gennep’s rites of passage, Freudian uncanny theory, and Kristeva’s concept of abjection to argue that Omori uses interactive spatial storytelling to depict the typically invisible nature of mental illness. Unlike earlier games that rely on harmful stereotypes, Omori invites players into an empathetic engagement with trauma and psychological fragmentation through gameplay and choice-based narrative outcomes. Ultimately, this paper suggests that Omori contributes to a broader discursive trend in which video games act as a medium for negotiating mental health in ways that challenge traditional narratives and encourage complex, individualised understandings of psychological suffering.