I NOT JUST A GAME
n this video game, you won’t find any bosses to take down before you can get to the next level. Instead, afterHOURS asks you to experience a night in the life of Lilith Gray – a young woman who was molested as a child and suffers from borderline personality disorder.
While doing her honours degree in experimental storytelling at Wits, Bahiyya Khan decided that her project for the year had to be one with purpose. At the time, it seemed she was surrounded by stories of femicide, and many women she knew personally confided in her that they had been raped or molested. ‘I felt like there were people in my life who didn’t understand sexual assault or mental illness, and how they affect people in their daily lives.’ She decided to combine the two, to start a conversation.
In afterHOURS, you play the protagonist, Lilith. She’s meant to be doing schoolwork but instead, she’s on Facebook. As you interact with objects in her room, her friends and her boyfriend, you uncover her story. ‘The entire game is made from film footage, which is meant to be the objective reality, but then
Lilith’s reality is the animation projected over the film footage,’ she explains. ‘You get to see that shift between what we see, and what she sees.’ As the game continues, you get a glimpse into how a person with personality disorder reacts to situations, and you experience problems that affect women.’
afterHOURS has received critical acclaim at gaming conventions around the world, with people from 14 to 70 years old reaching out to Bahiyya to tell her how much they could relate – unfortunately, she says. ‘I say “unfortunately” because I wish it didn’t resonate with so many people.’ It’s also personal for Bahiyya: it’s her in the film footage; she also has borderline personality disorder. ‘I wanted to destigmatise borderline. We’re so often demonised.’
After being hosted on the publisher’s site Humble Bundle, afterHOURS was released on Steam for the world to play. ‘I hope it makes people feel less alone, and if you haven’t experienced sexual assault or mental illness, that it makes you more mindful.
‘So many issues and problems can be gamified, and it’s important to me that we have open communication about them. It’s weird, because when most people think of video games, they don’t think of it as a form of activism,’ she admits. ‘But really it’s art, and art has always played a part in changing people’s lives.’