Designing a Digital Roleplaying Game to Foster Awareness of Hidden Disabilities

The document presents the design case for On Fighting Shadows (OFS), a two-dimensional digital roleplaying game built to raise awareness of hidden disabilities, with hydrocephalus as the focal condition in the prototype. The game follows a young adult character, Marvin, who experiences anxiety, depression, and hydrocephalus, and it aims to address both the medical realities of these conditions and the social misunderstandings surrounding brain and mental illness. The work frames the project as an educational design challenge, centered on the tension between learning objectives and engaging play.

The development choices are described in detail. The creator selected RPG Maker MV for its familiarity and suitability for emotionally resonant narrative games, and chose a 2D format to reduce cognitive load for players unfamiliar with roleplaying games. The prototype consists of three puzzles that introduce hydrocephalus, with medical content drawn from the designer's lived experience and information from the Hydrocephalus Association. Player actions were deliberately limited to directional movement, dialogue, and object interaction to minimize unnecessary mental effort.

The evaluation rests on a usability test with six graduate students and one instructor at a southern United States university. Participants worked in pairs, which improved engagement and puzzle-solving efficiency, and their observed navigation difficulties informed suggested improvements. The authors acknowledge a key limitation: none of the participants identified with the disabilities depicted, and they plan to address this in future iterations. Observations indicate that visual symptom representations and character reactions helped foster emotional engagement, while the study also confirmed an ongoing balance to strike between educational content and entertainment for different player profiles.