Mike Wilson combined Ryan Douglas, an engineer and former CEO of NEXTERN, a company working to carry out medical media, to create Deepwell, a new publisher whose productions (internal as external) will aim to propose a real benefit in terms of physical and especially mental health.
If Deepwell comes out of the ground at the beginning of the year 2022, it is first of all because of Mike Wilson’s commitment to the theme of mental health – he has served in particular several years on the board of Take this, a charity that feeds resource developers around the subject. But it is also, unsurprisingly, the result of an awareness that was done in particular during the global pandemic of CIVID-19 vis-à-vis the resurgence of mental disorders, starting with depression. All according to Ryan Douglas, with an insufficient number of specialists to treat them, especially in the United States where the medical coverage issues are added. Last observation: Medical Games often lack fun know-how to become truly fun and enjoyable experiences.
According to Mike Wilson for IGN, Deepwell will soon propose three types of projects. The first will be titles developed internally, with the aim of being also fun therapeutic, and will aim for a broad audience on maximum platforms. The second will be games developed by third parties, especially independent studios and who could have therapeutic virtues; Deepwell hopes to be able to join certain developments to guide the teams concerned in their approach. The latter will target games already released and whose medical qualities deserve to be recognized. “_These games already out, very therapeutic, can be explicitly presented to people who suffer from mental problems in order to help them follow a treatment”, thus explains Ryan Douglas.
Forty creators, game designers, scientists and researchers participate in the project in order to define major principles of the therapeutic design_. Rami Ismail, Lorne Lanning, American McGee or Tom Hall are among the big names of the video game involved. All kinds of games are envisaged and Deepwell does not want to start in the production of WHolesome Games \ – these soft, positive games – and the founders explain: “to connect and thus advance on the therapeutic ground… It may not be up to rainbows and sun rays that will allow you to identify you at the game. Sometimes, following a darker path offers a moment of distraction and self-realization […] Who can prove very catharic. And that’s what people who play these dark games say very, very long_ “.
The first titles of Deepwell should be announced by the end of spring.