Breathe (itch)

Breathe

Anxiety affects people indiscriminately. While the experience varies from person to person, anxiety attacks can cause a lack of control over your physical and emotional self, losing the ability to think logically and often hyperventilate or in other words forget how to breathe normally. Your perspective shrinks and even mundane tasks can seem impossible.

Breathe was created to simulate one experience of anxiety and anxiety attacks and explore how the world and daily tasks might look through the lens of anxiety. In particular the concept of remembering how to breathe. To progress, the player must maintain a steady and calm breathing pattern to help control their anxiety and walk to the end of the hallway. Remembering how to breathe is an unusual concept as it's an autonomous function that we almost take for granted. By making breathing the only thing the player can do, the sense of control is vastly skewed from what is expected of first person games.

The visuals and audio in Breathe are designed to both simulate the feeling of anxiety but also draw parallels to the perspective of a sufferer of anxiety. The stark environment and visual effects are a deliberate attempt to portray the mental image that is a reality to some.