Vampire Survivors – good for what ails you (pic: poncle)

A reader explains how Call Of Duty and Vampire Survivors helped get him out of a dark period with his mental health issues.

Some of the regular readers may have spotted my absence from the Underbox and letters page. I would like to think that my absence was missed but I think that won’t be the case, as towards the end of last year I had become rather obnoxious, even if I do so say myself. I have written about mental health in the past, and my own personal journey, and how gaming has often come to my rescue and, yet again, it did again.

From around November last year, I was starting to feel angry. Not just a little bit peeved but full on steam from the ears inducing anger. I was raging. This often translated into my comments on letters and features. Some of these were weeded out by GC but the odd one or two were seen by members of this community. I wrote a couple of very angry letters and features that were, quite rightly, dismissed out of hand, before finally snapping and writing another angry letter to the boys and girls at GC. Nothing came of this letter, although it probably gave the office a good laugh and I sulked off.

Where did all this anger come from? I had the joy of disappearing into the darkness of bi-polar. My dark side as I call it. It’s a pretty grim place, there’s not a lot of sunshine down there. The stupid thing from my perspective is it’s easily avoidable. All I have to do is take my meds. Guess which numpty wouldn’t take his meds? Oh that will be me!

My good lady wife finally got me on to my meds and the journey from the dark side started.

As I am writing this for a gaming site it was gaming I turned to, to get some mojo back. Two unlikely and very different games were the most helpful. The first game I turned to was Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, in particular the Invasion mode.

If ever a game induced rage and anger Call Of Duty has to be up there with the best of them. I went back to my coping strategies from the past and just played the game my way. I went out with a sniper rifle, mooching about with the only goal to work through the camo challenges. Some games were good, others were terrible. But by keeping at it the next camo bought a lot of personal satisfaction. The frown was on the move!

The game that really put a smile on my face, and got the sun shining again, was Vampire Survivors. I love this game; it makes me so happy play. It only took a couple of games to bring a smile to my face. There’re just too many adjectives to truly describe this game, to not turn this into dictionary. It’s a simple game to play with no buttons, just move about and survive for 30 minutes. There is a lot more to it as you progress though. Character and weapons choices and which buffs to take make each attempt different from the last.

It’s just a game that oozes satisfaction. Achievements ping without the need to go hunting for them. Some may say that’s not how you should win them. That’s an argument for another day but for me it’s a win as it encouraged play with different characters and weapons and not just your favourites and that bought more sunshine into my dark side. If you haven’t played this yet give it a go. I can’t think of many reasons why you wouldn’t, it’s extremely cheap and free on phones.

There is a small moral to this story. It’s take your meds. If you need them, take them. Don’t be a numpty like me and then get yourself in a right old state. You would think that after all this time I’d have the hang it by now. Sadly not.

Apologies to anyone who may have been on the receiving end of my ridiculous comments last year.

By reader Dirtystopout

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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A reader explains how Call Of Duty and Vampire Survivors helped get him out of a dark period with his mental health issues.