Discovery and Exploration

It Paints Me (3)

The idea of agency in an interactive game is closely related to the idea of experiencing empathy in that game. In a psychological horror such as "It Paints Me" that explores the darkness of tragic human experiences, it is understood that the hope is that the player will feel empathy towards Sam. In Bonnie Ruberg's paper, "Empathy and its Alternatives," she argues that sympathy and empathy have been used interchangeably quite often in modern times, so it's easy to conflate the two when they actually mean very different things. She writes, "the emotional engagements that journalists, industry members, and others are describing as empathy are, in many instances, better described as sympathy. Rather than feeling what someone else is feeling (the definition of empathy), this rhetoric presents video games as opportunities for players to feel pity for someone else’s misfortune (the definition of sympathy)." (64) Since it is virtually impossible to imagine exactly what someone else is thinking or feeling because, as humans, we all have unique perspectives, it can be easy to argue that sympathy is easily achieved while empathy is a somewhat more challenging goal. 

However, I would argue that "It Paints Me" is impressively close to achieving that goal. The airbrushed visuals, the eerie music and audio--especially the disturbingly lifelike sound effect when Marie is run over by the carriage--and, most importantly, the moving 1st-person storytelling, create an atmosphere that makes Sam's story seem incredibly real. Ruberg writes in her paper, "caring, compassion, sorrow, loss... are powerful concepts that deserve to be spoken out loud, not lost in the rhetoric of empathy." (68) The storytelling aspect of the game certainly hits the hardest, as it is told fluently and beautifully without being too upfront about sending a message, which is the best way to send a message. 

The player experiences what it's like to not be able to make art when it feels as if that is your purpose, because they are tangled in feelings of grief and heartbreak. "It Paints Me" is a journey of self-discovery through confronting one's fears and realizing how closely entangled life and human creations, such as art, are. It is a commentary on how it is virtually impossible to be an artist without bringing your life experiences into it and facing the fears that those experiences leave behind. It is a journey of an artist's self-discovery, and, in one of the two endings, how making art can save them from their darkest thoughts (in Sam's case, ending his life). By following Ruberg's rule that powerful concepts deserve to spoken out loud (or written out, in this case), the game effortlessly puts the player in Sam's shoes and gives them a window into what it feels like to be an artist struggling with grief and complicated heartbreak. While I still believe that it is implausible to truly make a player feel empathy through an interactive game, simply because of the nature of the game (it will always be just a game), "It Paints Me" certainly takes a step in the right direction. 

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