“You Don’t Look Sick” aims to provide understanding of those with chronic illness and disability

Those with an invisible illness often are misunderstood, but a recent graduate of the Laguna College of Art and Design is looking forward to bridging that gap.

Bryanna Menard, 31, who graduated with a master’s degree of fine art in game design last month, spent much time as a student developing a mobile game that can help others see the world through the eyes of those of whom they previously had difficulty relating to.

“You Don’t Look Sick” is the name of the game. Menard, who identifies as nonbinary, said they received an autism diagnosis a couple of years ago. Menard has experienced bouts of anxiety and depression.

An inspiration for Menard’s work came from The Spoon Theory, by Christine Miserandino, which used spoons as a metaphor for the energy a person living with chronic illness or disability can expend in a day.

“The game looks at energy usage and balancing your health and your wellness, which is supposed be like your physical health and your mental well-being,” Menard said.

“I think a lot of that was supposed to reflect with how I have to face life on a day-to-day basis … A lot of things take more energy than for the average person. Certain things, I can only do so much of in a given day.”

As graduation neared, Menard entered the project into the 10th annual IEEE GameSIG Intercollegiate Computer Game Showcase. The motivation for doing so had been to reward the team of artists that worked on the game by potentially adding to their résumés if the game placed in the contest.

“You Don’t Look Sick” ended up taking first place, and it struck a chord with one of the judges on a personal level.

“I talked about what [the game] meant to me, and we had five minutes to do game play and to talk about our game,” Menard said. “I was trying to talk about my game while playing through my game, and my game is narrative-based, so it’s not like I can just push buttons and fight things. I have to think about what I’m clicking on while I’m trying to talk about it.

“The judges, one of them had a very strong emotional reaction and said that she was the mother of a special-needs child and felt very touched by seeing these topics addressed.”

The game poster for “You Don’t Look Sick,” designed by Cheyenne Isola with logo by Heather Wright.

(Courtesy of Cheyenne Isola and Heather Wright)

Recognition came for the game in the form of the competition, and Menard also made sure that appreciation was shown for the team that assisted in its creation.

“I was really lucky to have, my last semester, a super strong and amazing team,” Menard said. “Without them, the game would be fine because it’s text-based, so the game itself would have functioned, but it would have looked so bad.”

Menard, who worked on “You Don’t Look Sick” in distance learning from her home in Lyndonville, Vt., would like to make the game more accessible by getting it added to the Google Play store. Menard said the game, which is available now on Itch.io, has received about 80 downloads to date.

A new platform has been created to allow for deeper understanding of those with chronic illness.

“They can look at it and say, ‘Oh, this is how your days go. You have to think about all of this stuff when you go through your day-to-day life,’” Menard said.

“Ideally, they would then be able to be like, ‘I understand better now.’ They might be a little nicer about it, assuming they weren’t nicer about it before.”

Also in the IEEE GameSIG Intercollegiate Computer Game Showcase, LCAD undergraduates Elizabeth Miksch, Georgia Muller, Hikari Oishi, Lilith Short and Heather Wright earned the Best in Visual Design award for “Trust Me Trust Me Not.”

“As I prepare to retire from my position as founding chair of LCAD Game Design MFA and founder of LCAD Game Art BFA programs, I am so proud of our students’ accomplishments during an incredible time of distance and challenge,” Sandy Appleoff said in a statement.

“Their talent and dedication inspired and awed me, and I know they will continue on building the standard of excellence.”

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