#for red it's mostly based on his trauma & his psychological state during the time of his mutation

[dianabercea]

Digging deeper: Dreams

Dreams are defined by vivid or memorable images, emotions and sensations that occur during different stages of sleep. Although the content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, they have been a huge topic in terms of science, psychology and religion interest throughout history. Many approve the Freudian theories about dreams - that they give insight into hidden desires and emotion, whereas others believe that dreams assist in memory formation, problem solving or simply are a product of random brain activation. Dreams play a substantial role in helping us cope with grief, stress and traumas. Most of our dreams are actually unpleasant; the most common emotions in dreams include fear, guilt, anxiety and helplessness. Moreover, anxiety dreams can be helpful – one theory is that we are working through our anxieties and more able to see what stresses us during the day. Dreams are an opportunity to work through things that frighten us in real life, to play out worst-case scenarios in an environment where they have no consequences. In order to get through the day, we have to edit out so much of what is going on around us, and if we pay attention to our subconscious and our dreams we get a different angle on our lives and issues. When we’re dreaming, we’re thinking in a state we never have access to by day. Dreams offer the opportunity to think in a different way and show new answers to problems, they often contain the seeds of something important.   The key themes that I thought of are: sleep, fiction, emotion, imagination. For further expansion I did word association: Sleep: calmness, rest(less), mattress, insomnia, REM, fatigue, eternal, disturbed Fiction: fake, utopian/dystopian, surrealism, supernatural, storytelling, speculative, mythic Emotion: anxiety, sadness, empathy, jealousy, hatred, overwhelming, passionate Imagination: originality, sensibility, idealism, contemplation, picturesque, stimulation.

Using the keywords above I have found some interesting articles: “Les yeux de W” at Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain Occitanie” is an exhibition containing the work of the French artist Laura Lamiel, which takes the viewer’s body and mind on an inner journey through a succession of rooms through which one roams and crosses like the recesses of a memory that is sometimes vivid, sometimes buried, at times radiant, now gloomy. In this exhibition, the details act like the synapses of an infinite brain in which spaces fit squarely inside one another, getting divided, reflected and wrapped. The letter W’s dual and symmetrical structure indicates one way of approaching the journey. Laura Lamiel has been creating minimalist abstract landscapes that defeats our perception of reality in every possible way. By combining quirky deceptions, symmetries and plays of mirrors, Laura Lamiel’s sculptures, installations, photographs and drawings disrupt our perspective while causing new images to emerge. In a reality that seems to be constantly slipping away, Laura Lamiel’s work keeps the perspective tense and  radiates perception into the depths of an inner experience. The artist constructs each of her works with an unparalleled meticulousness, combining smooth and gritty, hot and cold materials. White enameled steel, plexi-glass and neon are combined with varnished wood, copper, incense granules, but also with fabric, paper and cotton. The exhibition presents cell structures at the scale of human body. These are work and thought spaces in which the artist has placed stripped-down forms, but also archives, gloves and tissues that seem to have traveled through time, their worn-out appearance obstructing the calm, silent organization of the works. Laura Lamiel gives a significant level of attention to these tiny objects and fragments of life, bringing every focal distance of the eyes into play. From the finest detail to the overall space, the artist invites us to look in every way possible, under, through or from behind, while bringing to the surface what we tend to neglect, treating blind spots as quintessential looking-spaces.

The anxious art of Liana Finck: the New York cartoonist posts on Instagram her observations of urban life and how its etiquette is breached. “I think it inspires my Instagram drawings because I use those mostly to figure out things that are bothering me and make sense of them.” Somewhat ironically, it’s those drawings that draw the most negative response on Instagram. Finck’s keen observation of human behavior reflects intense awareness – to the point of self-consciousness – of her own. She frames her work as “noticing how civilization works” – moments when the urban fabric is momentarily pulled tight. If you do not pay these trivial violations any mind, it may be because city living fosters a certain obliviousness, a thicker skin. But not everyone develops it. “Sometimes I feel like a person who notices these things in a world of blind people who don’t”.

Next, we have Tracey Emin with her own reassembled bed, from when she used to live in a council flat in Waterloo, exhibited in Tate Britain for the first time in 15 years. She describes her work, “My Bed”, as a portrait of a young woman.   It shows her real bed at the time in all its embarrassing glory, with used condoms, dirty underwear and empty bottles of alcohol strewn across the crumpled stained sheets. Emin had expressed her wish for the piece to go to a museum and described the Tate as “the natural home” for the work. Emin herself was very involved in how the work was to be presented, and it sits in a gallery alongside two Francis Bacon’s paintings, his 1951 Study of a Dog and his 1961 Reclining Woman, as well as six of her drawings that Emin gifted to the Tate to mark the occasion. Emin said part of the reason she had been so keen to have the work back at Tate Britain was to have a chance to change people’s original perceptions of the piece.“It’s really important to me to show it in context,” she said. “When I showed it originally at the Tate Britain as part of the Turner prize, nobody even bothered looking at the work that surrounded it, even though there were my watercolours, my drawings. So, what’s really great by having the Bacons around it, people will look at the Bacons and they will understand the connection with the bed and my other drawings. They will see the bed is art and that, with these incredible artworks around it, it is in good company.”  what would be the most suitable companions, and she was involved in selecting the paintings that would be shown alongside her work. Emin considered that Francis Bacon was a very immediate answer to the question of who would be the most suitable companion to have his/her art shown alongside Emin’s, because there are wonderful reference’s between their work. There is this sheer vitality of the body that moves in spaces combined with a sense of internal turmoil.

Valerio Nicolai, an Italian artist, has a series of works entitled “Amarena”, exhibited in Milan, which is dedicated to that particular moments when everything we thought we knew falls and certainties fall down, personal apocalypses perceived as absolute, moments in which our vision of the world alters and turns to red. The material he uses already contain its own story and his artworks emerge as the result of an exchange of questions and answers between the artist and his creation. The name “Amarena” might recall an idealized childhood, an eternal start of summer spent climbing trees to eat fruits, ice cream cones bought by grandparents, but it could easily be the name of a devastating climatic event, a typical storm originated off the Brazilian coasts. The red dominant of the works is the color of the stage Nicolai interposes between subjective and objective realities in contrast. The images above represent 2 of his works, “Toilette”(the red painting) and “II festeggiato” (the red sculpture).

“What does idealism get you today? Abuse, derision, or sometimes prison” The world is holding its breath and it's stifling. Ever since the financial crash, there's been a sense of stasis, of waiting to see what emerges. As the wait goes on, the feeling of possibility becomes more overwhelming. The comical slogan that appeared in the immediate wake of the crisis, "Keep calm and carry on", makes all right-thinking people want to go mad. But that's largely because people aren't just keeping calm. A common air of resignation has taken over. There's lots of protest on social networking sites, lots of declarations, petitions, information. Yet, this feels like converted people are preaching to each other, their ideas and beliefs only gaining traction when opponents resort to anonymous abuse and threats. Far from bringing people together, social networking sometimes seems only to reveal the depths of our division.

With “From Anxiety to Volition”, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld is showing the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to Ludger Gerdes. With the beginnings of postmodernism in the late 1970s, Ludger Gerdes introduced a new communicativeness to sculpture and installation art—after Minimal and Concept Art. He dealt with architecture, nature and historical aesthetic concepts, as well as modernism, the public space and art’s relevance for society. His art is based on architectonic quotations, metaphors, abstractions and figurations, stagings, the pictorial quality of sculpture and word acrobatics. He assembled these recurring modules into models of thought and narratives whose structures or conclusions deliberately remain open. Models that show the world on a small scale, trees that symbolize the relationship between culture and nature, paintings that are sculptures,  words that fall out of everyday speech and a man wearing a top hat who views a painting in one moment and disappears the next.

The relationship between dreams and art is a strong one, having in common the idea that both can be either real or unreal. They complete each other replacing what it is with what might be and they are both exposed at different interpretations. Take, for instance, the extraordinary work of the 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, who used the fantastical and the grotesque to explore morality and mortality, depicting scenes from his dreams and visions.

[terryblount]

Sea of Solitude Review

This may sound like a joke, but I actually studied psychology for an entire year during my student days. I will admit that I came to hate the subject in the end, but the course had a few interesting moments. A particularly fascinating section was on the hidden part of the human mind not accessible to conscious thought, known in psychology as the ‘unconscious’.

The unconscious is the deepest and most primitive level of our psyche where our urges, emotions and instinctive thoughts exist in their most undiluted form. These impulses and feelings lie so deep beyond our awareness that we cannot describe them through rational language sometimes. Still, their effect on our mental reality can be very real, and very palpable.

This is the opening screen. A disclaimer like this, and you know you’re in for something a little more serious.

This is why people are so captivated by monsters and horror. These things represent an outer expression to some of the fears and aggressive instincts we house in the unconscious, particularly as a result of trauma or mental illness. Several games have tried to explore what it would be like to travel into the unconscious, with the Silent Hill and Evil Within series (Hellblade as well) being some notable examples.

Sea of Solitude by Jo-Mei Games, a Berlin-based studio,  has tried to capture this experience within an indie game.  This represents something like a catharsis for its creative director, Cornelia Geppert, as she takes the player through the darkest and most isolated moments of her life.

Meet Kay

It is tricky to describe the story behind Sea of Solitude since the game plays more like a series of puzzles for the player to solve rather than adhering to a linear plot. Come to think of it, I cannot recall being offered a proper intellectual challenge at any point, so calling them puzzles is perhaps an overstatement. Instead, you could say that Sea of Solitude is focused mostly on the experience and atmosphere it has to offer.

Learning how to let light guide my path

The player takes on the role of a young woman named Kay who wakes up floating on a little motorboat in the middle of a stormy ocean. The scene that greeted me was actually uncanny because Kay herself has sharp, black feathers with gleaming red eyes, and there is also the razor-toothed leviathan creeping just below the surface.

What I liked about the opening (despite the lack of any narrative exposition) is that I somehow understood the underlying message. I have been following the development of Sea of Solitude for some time, but this studio still surprised me with their talent for conveying imagery to the player. I suspect, the stormy waters represent Kay’s troubled mind, and her frightful appearance must represent how this inner state is psychologically turning her into a monster.

Kay then starts up her little dinghy, and a small light blips on in the darkness. On the turbulent waters the light looks like a haven, and I instinctively start to steer the boat towards its glow. It turns out to be a luminous, younger version of Kay floating angelically above the water. She assures me that she will keep me safe, and with a twirl of her hand lowers the water level, and changes the entire atmosphere to a bright sunny day.

Kay the monster

A floating city resembling Berlin appears from beneath the waves. Buildings, streets and cafés are rendered in a soft, pastel-coloured palette. Kay still looks ominously black in her little boat, but everything else appears serene and safe. The younger Kay plays a game with me in which I learn how to summon a little ball of light that will direct me where to go like an in-game compass, and Kay the Monster sounds almost happy for just a moment.

The experience

Suddenly, a bloodcurdling voice emanates from the water, and mini Kay zips off to investigate, leaving the atmosphere black and ominous again. Kay begs the little girl to come back right before a shell-dwelling creature rises out of the water. It utters profanities at Kay and insults her, which immediately led me to deduce that the beast represents Kay’s own self-loathing (because it looks a bit like her).

There is a way to defeat this monster so that I can proceed past the exit behind it. I need to clamber over some of the buildings, and clear away the worm-like strands of corruption slithering around balls of light (or are they energy?) using a trick the little girl taught me.

Clearing the corruption.

Unfortunately, I have to cross open water on a series of floating, garbage dumps, because the leviathan is back and starting to circle like a shark. This was utterly terrifying because the platforms are just out of Kay’s jumping range. Also, the monster can sense when I land in the water, so I have to wait for it to circle far enough, jump, and scuttle frantically on to safety before Kay ends up skewered on its gigantic fangs.

Eventually, the last ball of light is purged from corruption and its beam can be directed onto the creature. Turning the light sounds like utter agony, as Kay screams and moans from the effort. This must be a commentary on how difficult it is to escape the toxic circle of self-hatred and self-deprecation. With the monster defeated for now, I sail back into the sunlight, but it doesn’t last for long…

Techniques in narrative

My apologies if that dragged on quite a bit, but this would be a laughably short review if I only described what the player will actually be doing in Sea of Solitude. As I mentioned, this game’s strength is in the experience, and very little has therefore been invested in gameplay mechanics. The majority of my playthrough in Sea of Solitude was dedicated to helping Kay deal with the rest of the monsters lurking in her unconscious through mostly the same way I just described earlier.

These monsters range from a gigantic, fire-breathing, hairy chameleon representing Kay’s father (enraged by the constant conflict with her mother) to a werewolf-like dog representing Kay’s boyfriend. Get it? Puppy love? The monsters in this game are therefore not inspired by fantasy, but are instead the projections that Kay forms in her unconscious of real people, and the trauma they have enacted upon her.

Don’t let that beautiful exterior fool you. Every time Kay touches him, a monster starts to break through the white fur. It serves as a symbolism for how we sometimes hurt the ones we love.

There is a little bit of light platforming in Sea of Solitude, but what really steals the show is how damn interesting this game makes this minimalistic emphasis on gameplay. Sea of Solitude likes messing with your head and getting under your skin without resorting to outright horror or overly grotesque imagery. What unsettles the player is how they experience Kay’s story with her, and seeing how the drama of her external life has manifested as internal psychological horrors.

I mentioned how Jo-Mei Games constantly uses the power of imagery, which in itself was well done and engaging. I was constantly trying to connect what was happening in Kay’s mind to the snippets of dialogue from her life that plays as she proceeds through certain areas. I am also certain that many players will find the dialogue strangely familiar and relatable to their own lives.

Then there are the visual aesthetics themselves which are constantly supplying the mood for the player in certain scenarios. For example, Kay’s brother experienced horrific bullying and sexual assault at school, causing him to be represented in her mind as a forlorn and sad bird.

The form of Kay’s brother in her mind. I think the developer’s chose a bird to represent him due to its mournful and slumped form.

To save him from this bird-like form, she must share in the suffering he experienced by making her way through a flooded version of his school. This was one of the more creepy scenarios that the game has to offer since the sunken school is infested with red-eyed bullies made from smoky shadows. The dialogue that plays in Kay’s memory is also rather disturbing, as she experiences how bullies told her brother: “We’re going to find you… we’re going to kill you…”

Lastly, Jo-Mei Games have also used colour as artful visual cues to explain Kay’s memories.  The blacks in this game have been done particularly well in the Unity Engine as they look dark and bottomless against some of the more colourful and soft backdrops. This instantly alerts the player to when something is sinister or dangerous to Kay.

While Sea of Solitude has been rendered in a relatively simple, cel-shaded style without too much visual sophistication, the particle effects and use of light make the submerged dystopia a splendour to behold. The animation is also pretty good (particularly in how water has been rendered), and wandering around in this surreal world that Kay has shaped within her mind instills that tourist feeling I used to enjoy when I first started playing games.

An ocean of experience

I would be hard pressed to call Sea of Solitude a game about mental illness regardless of how many reviews might say otherwise. I never got the message that this was about a young woman’s struggle with depression or the like. Instead, this is a game about Kay’s journey through an immensely difficult time in her life when her loved ones where just flaking around her.

I actually made this my desktop wallpaper. This game has some serious beauty on display.

Which brings me to the problem. Namely, not everyone would appreciate or even enjoy this game. I loved it because Sea of Solitude was a short but powerful experience that I could link with times in my own life when I experience hardship or troubles. Yet I understand that it therefore makes my outlook biased, and players that are looking for a more gameplay-centred indie title would definitely find more satisfaction elsewhere.

If you are willing to sit back for about 2-3 hours, and you can permit yourself to get utterly absorbed in a game’s story for just a moment, definitely play this. Sea of Solitude is obviously a very personal game to its development studio, and their investment shines through every wave. The EA Originals program is producing some excellent content, and I think we should support games like this one before that awful CEO insists on anti-depressants as a microtransaction within the game.

Appealing visual effects

Thought-provoking content

Short and sweet

Unusual voice acting

Some sterile environments

Gameplay  sometimes basic

30 fps cap!?

        Playtime: 2 hours total.

Computer Specs: Windows 10, 64-bit PC using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

Sea of Solitude Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[citizentruth-blog]

As Months Pass in Chicago Shelters, Immigrant Children Contemplate Escape, Even Suicide - U.S. NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/as-months-pass-in-chicago-shelters-immigrant-children-contemplate-escape-even-suicide/

As Months Pass in Chicago Shelters, Immigrant Children Contemplate Escape, Even Suicide

Internal documents reveal despair and tedium in one of the nation’s largest shelter networks for unaccompanied minors.

(ProPublica) One 16-year-old from Guatemala said he wanted to “quitarme la vida,” or “take my life away,” as he waited to be released from a Chicago shelter for immigrant children. He was kept there for at least 584 days.

A 17-year-old from Guinea went on a hunger strike, telling staff members he refused to eat until he saw evidence they were trying to find him a home. He was released nearly nine months after he entered a shelter.

And a 10-month-old boy, forcibly separated from his father at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, was bitten repeatedly by an older child and later hospitalized after falling from a highchair. He was detained for five months.

ProPublica Illinois has obtained thousands of confidential records about the nine federally funded shelters in the Chicago area for immigrant youth operated by the nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services — some dating back years, others from as recently as last week.

The documents provide a sweeping overview of the inner workings and life inside one of the country’s largest shelter networks for unaccompanied minors, including children separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy.

While the records focus on Illinois shelters, they provide a rare glimpse of a secretive detention system that holds children at more than 100 sites across the country. They include descriptions of serious incident reports filed with the federal government, caseworkers’ notes on family reunifications, employee schedules, daily rosters, internal emails and more.

The documents reveal the routines of life inside the shelters, days punctuated by tedium and fear as children wait and wait and wait to leave. They spend their days taking English lessons and learning about such peculiarities as American slang, St. Patrick’s Day, the NFL and the red carpet fashions at the Academy Awards. They complain about the food and mistreatment by staff. And they cry and write letters and hurt themselves in despair.

In what they say and write, and in what is said and written about them, one truth becomes abundantly clear: The longer children are detained, the more they struggle.

And the time they spend inside is getting longer. The average length of stay nationally in fiscal year 2017 was 34 days. It grew to 57 days in June amid the Trump administration’s border crackdown that divided families, and then more recently to 59 days, federal officials told ProPublica Illinois last week.

But that figure masks the harsh reality that some children have spent hundreds of days waiting to leave. In Chicago alone, 27 children who were in Heartland’s care during the month of July — including several from India, Guatemala and Nepal — had been held for 200 days or more, records show. A 17-year-old from Honduras had been in custody the longest: 598 days.

“It’s traumatic to have this indefinite detention,” said Emily Ruehs-Navarro, an assistant professor of sociology at Elmhurst College near Chicago who has studied shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children. “It’s a vicious cycle where the longer kids stay, the more trauma is compounded on their situation.”

Children — many of whom are reeling from the trauma of rape, violence or other abuse in their home countries or during their treks to the United States — languish as caseworkers try to find sponsors and persuade them to undergo background checks. Those without relatives or family friends in the U.S. remain in custody even longer, sometimes rejected by long-term foster care programs already filled to capacity.

As caseworkers try to find placements, the older teens live in fear of turning 18. Records show that immigration officials, almost without fail, arrive on the children’s birthdays to take them into custody.

Heartland acknowledged that extended stays lead to some children “becoming frustrated and losing motivation and hope,” the agency wrote in a 2017 report to the federal government. When children are left inside for extended periods, the report continued, there is “no incentive” for them to behave.

Both Heartland and federal officials say they work hard to quickly find homes for children. The federal government makes the final call on when children can be released from a shelter.

In a statement to ProPublica Illinois, Heartland officials declined to comment on specific incidents involving children, but acknowledged that those affected by the zero tolerance policy “don’t want to be with us at all — they just want to go home.”

“That can play out in deep feelings of despair, unhappiness, wanting to escape, and even suicidal thoughts,” they said. “This has nothing to do with the shelter and everything to do with the trauma and horror these children have lived through — coming to a foreign country, being brought to an unknown place without your loved one, and suffering emotionally from being forcibly separated from their parents.”

Classes, Acculturation and Despair

Records reveal a regimented existence inside the shelters, with employees controlling nearly every minute of a child’s day. Though children attend class and play games and sports outside, they must walk in single-file lines and, for the most part, can’t move about buildings without permission.

“You wake up by 7 a.m., have a shower, then they give you breakfast,” recounted a 16-year-old from Nigeria who, along with two sisters, spent more than a month at a shelter this spring.

“I went to a lot of classes,” recalled a 15-year-old from Brazil now living with her mother in Philadelphia. “Three to four classes in the morning, then three more after lunch.”

Children spend hours each day in class, mostly learning English. Schedules and other records document regular activities around mental health and vocational education, from building positive relationships to writing a resume. Children who behave go on field trips to Chicago’s major cultural destinations, including art and science museums.

The records describe regular “community meetings” at the shelters during which children can voice their opinions. During one meeting in early 2017, children at the Casa Guadalupe shelters in suburban Des Plaines complained about finding hair in their food. That prompted management to remind staff to wear gloves and hairnets.

At another shelter, children requested coffee, hair bands and different shampoo.

The children, records show, said they were being unfairly punished by staff when other children acted out. In response, management talked to employees about how “sometimes our typical response is not an appropriate consequence.”

Other complaints, described in the documents and ProPublica Illinois interviews with children, involved food — not having enough of it or being forced to eat everything on their plates.

Nearly a dozen children who were recently released from a Heartland shelter told ProPublica Illinois they were grateful for the care they received: three meals a day, a bed and a roof over their heads.

A 16-year-old from India, who spent 114 days at Heartland’s largest facility on Chicago’s South Side, reported no problems during his time there and said he made some friends. He’s now happy to be with family in New York, his aunt said.

“He was alone and no family (was there), so that thing was very hard for him,” she said.

For the most part, several children said, shelter employees were kind. But they repeatedly also said employees would sometimes threaten to slow reunification efforts when children refused to take part in daily activities — as some children sometimes did if they were “too sad” to participate.

Heartland said such threats are not its policy. Ruehs-Navarro said children with repeated behavioral problems, or those who express suicidal thoughts or other psychological needs, may spend longer inside shelters because their caseworkers must ensure potential sponsors are prepared to provide the support they need.

“It’s supposed to be a protective measurement,” she said. “It’s not supposed to be a punishment, but it ends up being a punishment.”

For the 16-year-old who cried out that he wanted to “take my life away,” life before the shelter was already traumatic: He told Heartland staff that he came to the United States in early 2015 to flee violence in Guatemala, where he said he had been shot at twice and extorted by a gang.

As months passed in the shelter, new problems emerged. He talked about suicide, running away and hearing voices. More than a year later, documents note he became upset after receiving an update from his caseworker about the effort to place him with a sponsor. He punched a door in anger.

He didn’t leave until four months later, in late 2016. It’s unclear where he went.

“Just Wait Until the Paperwork Is Done”

Heartland, which cares for some 3,000 unaccompanied minors each year, receives more federal funding to do this work than all but three other organizations in the country. Heartland is part of a larger nonprofit organization called Heartland Alliance, which is based in Chicago and works on a range of issues, including human rights, housing and health care.

A former senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services said Heartland has a reputation for longer lengths of stays than the rest of the nation’s shelter network in part because it cares for a disproportionate number of children with physical and psychological challenges

Advocates for immigrant children and some Heartland employees say there’s another reason for the more recent increases in lengths of stays: the public attention on children separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, as well as a court-ordered deadline to reunite those families. Together, those factors put pressure on shelter staff to prioritize those cases at the expense of other children in the shelters.

Heartland officials said the arrival of children under the zero-tolerance policy has not had a “significant” effect on getting other children back to their families. Instead, they point to other reasons for the delays, including more onerous federal requirements for potential sponsors. All household members, for instance, now need to be fingerprinted.

And new federal regulations require information on sponsors to be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which could deter possible sponsors with household members who are undocumented immigrants. In the case of one 16-year-old from Honduras, records describe a delay after the “sponsor was scared to go to a police station for fingerprinting.”

The records obtained by ProPublica Illinois show how the process of matching children to sponsors — relatives, friends or foster families — can be drawn out. Shelter staff must ask for copies of birth certificates, photos or other documents to try to confirm relationships.

A relative of one 17-year-old who was released this summer told ProPublica Illinois how he sent letters to the boy’s mother in Bangladesh and waited for her to sign them and mail them back. He said he had to constantly reassure the teen, who was held for 11 weeks in Chicago, that he would be released soon.

“I told him, ‘Just wait until the paperwork is done,’” he said.

Cost is another factor. Federal guidelines require sponsors to pay for the plane tickets from a shelter to a new home for both the child and an escort. But many sponsors, often part of the same family, have little money to begin with and have gone into debt to send the children to the U.S. One mother, for instance, told authorities she sold her home in India to pay for her child’s journey here, according to documents.

In another case, a potential sponsor for a 17-year-old Guatemalan boy told shelter staff he had asked the boy’s relatives for 30,000 quetzales, or close to $4,000, to help pay for the costs of obtaining legal documents and a flight from Chicago to Florida. That sponsor was rejected, and a few days later, the boy told staff that “he wanted to kill himself due to receiving news that his sponsor was denied,” according to the documents.

Heartland officials said they understand the concerns surrounding travel expenses — as much as $1,250, some families told ProPublica Illinois — and in cases of “extreme hardship,” the federal government will cover the costs.

Several Heartland employees told ProPublica Illinois that staffing shortages also offer an explanation for growing lengths of stays. Family reunification specialists, they said, are sometimes asked to do other tasks, such as supervising children or cleaning up after meals. That takes them away from getting children safely placed with sponsors.

Federal monitors, in fact, reminded Heartland officials in an August 2016 email that family reunification specialists and clinicians “should not be assigned to other duties” because it “significantly and negatively impacts [level of care].”

But staffing woes continue. In July, a program manager at Casa Guadalupe sent an email to employees asking for volunteers to fill dozens of overtime shifts. One Sunday, the email shows, seven slots were available for a morning shift with 13 positions.

In another email a few days later, the program manager asked if staffers could work even part of a shift because the shelter “is in the need of help this week, especially Thursday, Friday and Saturday shifts.”

In recent weeks, current employees said, Heartland announced it would bring in temporary workers to help out at its shelters, including its largest facility, in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

Heartland officials acknowledged their struggle to retain employees at the shelters.

“Our front-line staff have very tough jobs and can experience fatigue like many who do this work,” they said in a statement. “Moreover, the fluctuation and unpredictability of the number of intakes into our program present challenges for retaining full-time staff.”

The statement said that, when necessary, it “worked with specialized staffing agencies” and that those “temporary staff” go through background checks and training before they work with children.

Heartland regularly recruits for new full-time staff, and it recently hosted a job fair down the street from Casa Guadalupe focused on bilingual candidates, according to a flyer for the event. The former HHS official said that meeting children’s language needs has long been a challenge for Heartland because the organization receives many of the non-Spanish speaking minors in federal care.

Officials from Heartland said the organization “has the capacity to accept a diverse population due to the many languages spoken by its staff.”

Records show that, during July, about 60 percent of the minors in Heartland shelters were from non-Spanish-speaking countries, including India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Romania. At shelters across the country, the vast majority of children are from Central America and Mexico.

This summer, incidents related to staffing at Heartland shelters fell under unprecedented public scrutiny. Federal and state authorities opened investigations into the agency after news reports alleged staff at Casa Guadalupe gave a Guatemalan boy injections that made him sleepy.

Both investigations are ongoing, but Heartland officials said an internal review found no evidence to support the claims.

Lawyers for an 11-year-old boy sued Heartland in federal court in July alleging Casa Guadalupe staff was negligent for ignoring his cries for help, and claimed he was bullied and physically injured by an older child. Heartland has not responded to the filing in court, although officials from the organization have said they have found no evidence of negligence.

ProPublica Illinois previously reported that Heartland has been cited by the state Department of Children and Family Services several times in recent years for failing to provide appropriate supervision. In one case, children were found to have had oral sex in a common room at a shelter. In another, an employee allegedly engaged in a sexual relationship with a detained teen.

Heartland officials declined to address the specific incidents but said they “represent highly rare occasions.”

A Fear of Turning 18

On a recent Thursday morning, more than a dozen boys and girls wearing matching polo shirts and jeans filed into the courtroom of Chicago immigration Judge Jennie Giambastiani, who handles the court’s juvenile docket.

The children were being held in Heartland facilities and ranged in age from a 14-year-old Honduran girl with dark hair pulled into two bunches, to several 17-year-old boys with beards and mustaches beginning to sprout. Most of the children sat silently and looked down at their hands clasped in their laps. One teen periodically wiped his sweaty palms on his knees while another bounced his foot.

All were represented by attorneys from the National Immigrant Justice Center, also a subsidiary of the Heartland Alliance.

Giambastiani spoke briefly with every child — all but one through an interpreter — and asked the same questions: their name, age and, depending on the answer, how soon they would turn 18.

“Oh, that’s coming up,” she told one young man.

The judge turned to the attorney of another young man and issued the same warning she had repeated many times that morning: “With his 18th birthday looming, I don’t want him to miss an opportunity” to be placed with a sponsor.

“Please be mindful of that,” she added.

A child’s 18th birthday is a dreaded milestone marked by the arrival of federal immigration agents at shelter doors, sometimes just after midnight. Current and former staff said they have overheard older children talk about running away as their birthday approached. Some have been successful.

In some cases, Heartland assigns a staff member to monitor the child.

Heartland officials said they “have not had a significant number of children turn 18 while they are in our care.” But records show that, in July alone, at least six detained youths were picked up by ICE agents the day they turned 18.

A federal detainee locator showed that three of those teens remained in adult detention more than a month after they were transferred, including one in a county jail in Illinois that contracts with the federal government to provide immigrant detention. It’s unclear if the other three 18-year-olds were deported or released.

Nationally, between 1,000 and 1,200 children who turned 18 while in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement were taken to ICE adult detention facilities in fiscal year 2017, according to a lawsuit filed in March by NIJC and the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. The suit seeks to halt the practice of automatically transferring 18-year-olds into adult facilities without considering “the least restrictive setting” — including non-detention placements — as required by law.

In some cases, teens who had secured placements were still transferred to ICE on their 18th birthday, according to documents filed in the lawsuit.

“The concerns and vulnerabilities of immigrant kids don’t magically disappear on their 18th birthday,” Kate Melloy Goettel, an attorney with NIJC, said.

What changes in adult detention is not all for the worse. On one hand, 18-year-olds can receive visitors, something that rarely happens at youth shelters because of the confidentiality around their locations.

But they lose access to free calls to families, daily classes and caseworkers. They trade in their plain shelter clothes for jail jumpsuits and, depending on where they are sent, their bunkmates for men and women charged with serious crimes. And instead of worrying about whether a sponsor will take them, the 18-year-olds wait to see if they will be eligible for release or whether their families can afford to bond them out.

Last week, a U.S. District Court judge denied a government request to dismiss the lawsuit and allowed it to move forward as a class-action suit to include all unaccompanied children transferred to ICE facilities after they turned 18.

Heartland officials said that they believe the right to seek safety and asylum extends to children who turn 18 while in shelters and that they oppose “the prosecution, detention and the return” of those children in search of such reprieves.

Sometimes, young people are so fearful of turning 18 — or were already 18 when they entered the country — that they lie about their birthdate or show fake birth certificates. Federal guidelines instruct staff who suspect supposed minors are actually adults to verify their age in part to avoid housing adults with children. Shelter staff can seek medical procedures such as forensic dental exams and bone density tests as part of the process.

Two Heartland workers said the evaluations are performed by an area dentist under the guise of a routine checkup. Heartland officials did not respond to questions about this process but instead referred to the federal guidelines.

The Heartland records show that in July, a young man from Ghana and a woman from Honduras in the shelters were turned over to ICE after “age redeterminations.”

Beatriz, a 15-year-old from Brazil, recalled how another girl she became friends with during her nearly nine months at a Heartland shelter was turned over to ICE after staff discovered the girl was actually in her early 20s. Beatriz said her friend was eventually released from federal custody and now lives with relatives on the East Coast.

Beatriz, meanwhile, lives in Atlanta, though she recently returned to Chicago for an immigration court hearing. She said she often thinks about her time at the Heartland shelter, even searching for it online using Google Street View, remembering the name of the street and of a nearby school.

And she has remained in touch with the friends she made inside, including the young woman now on the East Coast, through a messaging app.

They named their WhatsApp group “Sweet Freedom.”

ProPublica senior reporter Ginger Thompson and ProPublica Illinois news applications fellow Katlyn Alo contributed to this report.

Worker Charged With Sexually Molesting Eight Children at Immigrant Shelter

[healthinfi-blog]

ginseng erectile dysfunction study

Overview Many men experience symptoms of erectile dysfunction (ED) as they age. Also known as impotence, ED is an occasional (or prolonged) inability to get or maintain an erection. When ED occurs frequently, you might need treatment for an underlying health issue. In this way, ED is important to address. Lifestyle changes, medications, and natural or alternative treatments can all help restore normal sexual function. Treating ED Erectile dysfunction can be caused by psychological problems. In many cases, there’s a physiological cause like diabetes, nerve damage, or heart disease. Lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, exercising, and giving up smoking and alcohol, can often help with ED. Lifestyle changes may not be enough to alleviate symptoms. Fortunately, medications are often effective. Medication injections that dilate blood vessels are another option. Certain herbal supplements, like ginseng, may also help. Make sure to talk to your doctor before taking any kind of supplement. What Is Korean Red Ginseng? Pros Korean red ginseng is linked to increased alertness and could potentially improve erectile dysfunction. Ginseng can help prevent colds and lessen the severity of heart disease symptoms. Cons Korean red ginseng is not FDA-approved for treating erectile dysfunction. Ginseng can interfere with some medications and increase the effects of caffeine. Korean red ginseng is a plant that grows in Asia. It’s sometimes known as Asian ginseng, Chinese ginseng, or panax ginseng. Korean red ginseng should not be confused with Siberian ginseng or American ginseng. Siberian and American ginseng are different plants that serve different needs. The ginseng root is used as a natural remedy in supplement form. The plant must grow for five years before it’s used. This usually means that high-quality ginseng commands a high price. The dried but unprocessed root is called white ginseng. The root that has been steamed and dried is called red ginseng. Traditional Uses of Red Ginseng Korean red ginseng has been used in traditional Chinese medicine as an overall wellness supplement for centuries. It has been used to: boost the immune system improve heart health treat diabetes increase energy decrease stress treat impotence The root is said to resemble the human body. Instead of arms and legs, it has shoots. This resemblance is thought to be the reason that traditional herbalists considered ginseng as a full-body treatment. Today, research is showing just how effective ginseng is as a natural remedy.

Korean Red Ginseng and ED Red ginseng has long been used to treat impotence. But researchers are now studying the effectiveness of the plant. In one study, 45 men with ED were given either Korean red ginseng or a placebo. The men receiving the herb took 900 milligrams, three times a day, for eight weeks. At the end of eight weeks, those who took Korean red ginseng felt improvement in their ED symptoms compared to those who took the placebo. Researchers concluded that red ginseng may be an effective alternative treatment for impotence. Ginseng in Women Many women also experience a decline in sexual function during menopause. Another study explored Korean red ginseng’s effects on menopausal women. In the study, 32 women were given either three capsules a day of ginseng, or a placebo. Those who received the supplement had improved sexual functioning with no side effects. Researchers concluded that red ginseng may improve sexual function in women. Other Benefits of Ginseng Some research suggests that ginseng may help people with cancer. Ginseng can help prevent colorectal (or colon) cancer. Ginseng may also help people with cancer feel better when combined with chemotherapy. In addition, some research shows that ginseng can prevent the growth of tumors and even stop the spread of cancer cells. Other research shows that ginseng can help lessen the chronic fatigue that comes with cancer. Ginseng can help prevent colds and lessen the severity of heart disease symptoms. Ginseng may also be effective in increasing alertness, decreasing stress, and improving endurance. Forms of Ginseng When purchasing ginseng supplements, be sure that the type of ginseng is clearly marked. Both white and red ginseng are available. However, research has mostly been done on red ginseng. You can take red ginseng as liquid, powders, or capsules. You can also buy the dried root to boil in water for tea. Talk to your doctor about the right dosage for you. Never take more than recommended. Side Effects Short-term red ginseng use is considered safe for most people. Over time, the plant may affect your body. Side effects don’t occur in everyone who takes ginseng. The most common side effect is trouble sleeping. Less common side effects include: menstrual issues increased heart rate elevated blood pressure headache diarrhea dizziness rash Ginseng erectile dysfunction Herbal medicines have gained huge popularity recently. Among all, there are herbal medicine products, used for treatment of male sexual dysfunction. Almost all herbal medicines that are prescribed for erectile dysfunction treatment, contain ginseng. Herbal medicines that contain ginseng are available under various trade names. For instance: Panax, Gerimax Energy, Ginseng plus, Tinctura Ginsengi. Men with erectile dysfunction have the opportunity to take ginseng in capsules, powders and liquid extracts as well as tinctures. Ginseng became very popular worldwide, because it provides bracing, invigorating and stimulating effect. Besides the fact that ginseng is effective in the treatment of erectile dysfunction, it also decreases mental and physical fatigue, enhances workability and calms the central nervous system. As a matter of fact ginseng has been used for erectile dysfunction for many years all over the world. Ginseng has first been used in the treatment of erectile dysfunction in Chinese folk medicine. Please note that erectile dysfunction (ED) may arise due to numerous different causes. For instance, it may be caused due to strong emotional stress and depression. The uniqueness of ginseng is that not only restores erectile function, but improves psychoemotional state of a man. When being used for erectile dysfunction therapy, ginseng guarantees strong libido and significant improvement of sexual life. However ginseng can not be prescribed for the treatment of severe erectile dysfunction. For example it is erectile dysfunction, which arose due to the use of potent drugs or spinal traumas. So in order to cure severe erectile dysfunction, men might need to use prescription medicines. These are Tadalafil or Sildenafil. But ginseng has to be taken regularly, unlike the prescription medicines for erectile dysfunction, taken right before the sexual intercourse. It must be said that ginseng not only restores the erection, but also improves the mobility and quality of sperm. But unlike usual erectile dysfunction drugs, herbal medicines containing ginseng never cause side effects. A new study published in the International Journal of Impotence Research evaluated the use of a ginseng extract in 119 men who had mild to moderate erectile dysfunction. The men were given either four ginseng berry extract tablets (350 mg per tablet) or placebo daily for eight weeks. During and after the study period, the men were evaluated using two scales: the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) and one that assessed premature ejaculation. Generally, men who took ginseng experienced a significant improvement in erectile function and in premature ejaculation by the end of the study. The authors of the study concluded that ginseng for erectile dysfunction treatment “can be used as an alternative medicine to improve sexual life in men with sexual dysfunction.” Ginseng may also indirectly improve sexual function because of its positive effect on other health issues. For example, a recent study from Australia reported that ginseng “shows promising results for improving glucose metabolism and moderating the immune response.” It’s well accepted that diabetes has a negative effect on erectile function. Therefore an improvement in your management of diabetes may help erectile dysfunction. Men who are experiencing erectile dysfunction may want to consider adding ginseng to their treatment plan. Consult a knowledgeable healthcare provider about the most appropriate dose. Efficiency of herbal medicines based on ginseng The efficiency of herbal medicines for erectile dysfunction treatment is caused by the fact that they all contain ginseng, but not only. They also contain large amount of microelements. Such as: panaquilone; ginsenine; Panax ginseng acid; alkaloids; Panax; Vitamin C, B1, B2; triterpene glycosides; essential oil; potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, copper, zinc, chromium, iodine and silver. Each element of herbal medicines has therapeutic effect. For example, Panax provides stimulating effect. Panaquilone stimulates endocrine system, keeping sufficient amount of hormones in the body. Panax ginseng acid increases oxidation processes and stimulates metabolism. Ginsenine regulates metabolism of carbohydrates, reduces blood sugar, increasing glycogen synthesis. Herbal medicines that contain ginseng, can normalize his hormonal balance, improve metabolism and increase blood inflow to the genitals. Therefore ginseng not only brings back good erection, but also: * increases sexual sensations; * increases sexual desire. The remarkable fact is that those men, who take ginseng for erectile dysfunction treatment, have got increased production of testosterone and luteinizing hormone in their bodies. Therefore ginseng has a positive effect on the quality and mobility of the sperm, and thus it is effective for the treatment of male infertility. In addition to that ginseng improves the sexual function, it increases the resistance of the male body to emotional, biological and physical distress. Men, who are using ginseng to cope with erectile dysfunction, have got high immunity and decreased susceptibility to diseases. When erectile dysfunction is associated with diabetes type II, ginseng contributes to decrease of blood sugar in the plasma. Improving functions of the pancreas, ginseng helps to reduce the dose of insulin and other hypoglycemic drugs. However men with erectile dysfunction must be aware that ginseng cannot immediately restore the sexual function. So it is recommended to take ginseng daily (at least 4 weeks) in order to get positive results. The highest efficiency of ginseng for erectile dysfunction therapy, is achieved if it is taken regularly, but in short treatment courses. If you want to buy ginseng for the treatment of erectile dysfunction but you don’t know what trade names herbal medicines have at city drugstores, then you may order shipping of pills containing ginseng on our online pharmacy. In order to buy herbal medicines (ginseng) for etile dysfunctionrec online, you don’t have to fill out medical forms and questionnaires. That is why buying herbal products for erectile dysfunction (containing ginseng) online takes just a couple of minutes.   Read the full article

[terryblount]

Sea of Solitude Review

This may sound like a joke, but I actually studied psychology for an entire year during my student days. I will admit that I came to hate the subject in the end, but the course had a few interesting moments. A particularly fascinating section was on the hidden part of the human mind not accessible to conscious thought, known in psychology as the ‘unconscious’.

The unconscious is the deepest and most primitive level of our psyche where our urges, emotions and instinctive thoughts exist in their most undiluted form. These impulses and feelings lie so deep beyond our awareness that we cannot describe them through rational language sometimes. Still, their effect on our mental reality can be very real, and very palpable.

This is the opening screen. A disclaimer like this, and you know you’re in for something a little more serious.

This is why people are so captivated by monsters and horror. These things represent an outer expression to some of the fears and aggressive instincts we house in the unconscious, particularly as a result of trauma or mental illness. Several games have tried to explore what it would be like to travel into the unconscious, with the Silent Hill and Evil Within series (Hellblade as well) being some notable examples.

Sea of Solitude by Jo-Mei Games, a Berlin-based studio,  has tried to capture this experience within an indie game.  This represents something like a catharsis for its creative director, Cornelia Geppert, as she takes the player through the darkest and most isolated moments of her life.

Meet Kay

It is tricky to describe the story behind Sea of Solitude since the game plays more like a series of puzzles for the player to solve rather than adhering to a linear plot. Come to think of it, I cannot recall being offered a proper intellectual challenge at any point, so calling them puzzles is perhaps an overstatement. Instead, you could say that Sea of Solitude is focused mostly on the experience and atmosphere it has to offer.

Learning how to let light guide my path

The player takes on the role of a young woman named Kay who wakes up floating on a little motorboat in the middle of a stormy ocean. The scene that greeted me was actually uncanny because Kay herself has sharp, black feathers with gleaming red eyes, and there is also the razor-toothed leviathan creeping just below the surface.

What I liked about the opening (despite the lack of any narrative exposition) is that I somehow understood the underlying message. I have been following the development of Sea of Solitude for some time, but this studio still surprised me with their talent for conveying imagery to the player. I suspect, the stormy waters represent Kay’s troubled mind, and her frightful appearance must represent how this inner state is psychologically turning her into a monster.

Kay then starts up her little dinghy, and a small light blips on in the darkness. On the turbulent waters the light looks like a haven, and I instinctively start to steer the boat towards its glow. It turns out to be a luminous, younger version of Kay floating angelically above the water. She assures me that she will keep me safe, and with a twirl of her hand lowers the water level, and changes the entire atmosphere to a bright sunny day.

Kay the monster

A floating city resembling Berlin appears from beneath the waves. Buildings, streets and cafés are rendered in a soft, pastel-coloured palette. Kay still looks ominously black in her little boat, but everything else appears serene and safe. The younger Kay plays a game with me in which I learn how to summon a little ball of light that will direct me where to go like an in-game compass, and Kay the Monster sounds almost happy for just a moment.

The experience

Suddenly, a bloodcurdling voice emanates from the water, and mini Kay zips off to investigate, leaving the atmosphere black and ominous again. Kay begs the little girl to come back right before a shell-dwelling creature rises out of the water. It utters profanities at Kay and insults her, which immediately led me to deduce that the beast represents Kay’s own self-loathing (because it looks a bit like her).

There is a way to defeat this monster so that I can proceed past the exit behind it. I need to clamber over some of the buildings, and clear away the worm-like strands of corruption slithering around balls of light (or are they energy?) using a trick the little girl taught me.

Clearing the corruption.

Unfortunately, I have to cross open water on a series of floating, garbage dumps, because the leviathan is back and starting to circle like a shark. This was utterly terrifying because the platforms are just out of Kay’s jumping range. Also, the monster can sense when I land in the water, so I have to wait for it to circle far enough, jump, and scuttle frantically on to safety before Kay ends up skewered on its gigantic fangs.

Eventually, the last ball of light is purged from corruption and its beam can be directed onto the creature. Turning the light sounds like utter agony, as Kay screams and moans from the effort. This must be a commentary on how difficult it is to escape the toxic circle of self-hatred and self-deprecation. With the monster defeated for now, I sail back into the sunlight, but it doesn’t last for long…

Techniques in narrative

My apologies if that dragged on quite a bit, but this would be a laughably short review if I only described what the player will actually be doing in Sea of Solitude. As I mentioned, this game’s strength is in the experience, and very little has therefore been invested in gameplay mechanics. The majority of my playthrough in Sea of Solitude was dedicated to helping Kay deal with the rest of the monsters lurking in her unconscious through mostly the same way I just described earlier.

These monsters range from a gigantic, fire-breathing, hairy chameleon representing Kay’s father (enraged by the constant conflict with her mother) to a werewolf-like dog representing Kay’s boyfriend. Get it? Puppy love? The monsters in this game are therefore not inspired by fantasy, but are instead the projections that Kay forms in her unconscious of real people, and the trauma they have enacted upon her.

Don’t let that beautiful exterior fool you. Every time Kay touches him, a monster starts to break through the white fur. It serves as a symbolism for how we sometimes hurt the ones we love.

There is a little bit of light platforming in Sea of Solitude, but what really steals the show is how damn interesting this game makes this minimalistic emphasis on gameplay. Sea of Solitude likes messing with your head and getting under your skin without resorting to outright horror or overly grotesque imagery. What unsettles the player is how they experience Kay’s story with her, and seeing how the drama of her external life has manifested as internal psychological horrors.

I mentioned how Jo-Mei Games constantly uses the power of imagery, which in itself was well done and engaging. I was constantly trying to connect what was happening in Kay’s mind to the snippets of dialogue from her life that plays as she proceeds through certain areas. I am also certain that many players will find the dialogue strangely familiar and relatable to their own lives.

Then there are the visual aesthetics themselves which are constantly supplying the mood for the player in certain scenarios. For example, Kay’s brother experienced horrific bullying and sexual assault at school, causing him to be represented in her mind as a forlorn and sad bird.

The form of Kay’s brother in her mind. I think the developer’s chose a bird to represent him due to its mournful and slumped form.

To save him from this bird-like form, she must share in the suffering he experienced by making her way through a flooded version of his school. This was one of the more creepy scenarios that the game has to offer since the sunken school is infested with red-eyed bullies made from smoky shadows. The dialogue that plays in Kay’s memory is also rather disturbing, as she experiences how bullies told her brother: “We’re going to find you… we’re going to kill you…”

Lastly, Jo-Mei Games have also used colour as artful visual cues to explain Kay’s memories.  The blacks in this game have been done particularly well in the Unity Engine as they look dark and bottomless against some of the more colourful and soft backdrops. This instantly alerts the player to when something is sinister or dangerous to Kay.

While Sea of Solitude has been rendered in a relatively simple, cel-shaded style without too much visual sophistication, the particle effects and use of light make the submerged dystopia a splendour to behold. The animation is also pretty good (particularly in how water has been rendered), and wandering around in this surreal world that Kay has shaped within her mind instills that tourist feeling I used to enjoy when I first started playing games.

An ocean of experience

I would be hard pressed to call Sea of Solitude a game about mental illness regardless of how many reviews might say otherwise. I never got the message that this was about a young woman’s struggle with depression or the like. Instead, this is a game about Kay’s journey through an immensely difficult time in her life when her loved ones where just flaking around her.

I actually made this my desktop wallpaper. This game has some serious beauty on display.

Which brings me to the problem. Namely, not everyone would appreciate or even enjoy this game. I loved it because Sea of Solitude was a short but powerful experience that I could link with times in my own life when I experience hardship or troubles. Yet I understand that it therefore makes my outlook biased, and players that are looking for a more gameplay-centred indie title would definitely find more satisfaction elsewhere.

If you are willing to sit back for about 2-3 hours, and you can permit yourself to get utterly absorbed in a game’s story for just a moment, definitely play this. Sea of Solitude is obviously a very personal game to its development studio, and their investment shines through every wave. The EA Originals program is producing some excellent content, and I think we should support games like this one before that awful CEO insists on anti-depressants as a microtransaction within the game.

Appealing visual effects

Thought-provoking content

Short and sweet

Unusual voice acting

Some sterile environments

Gameplay  sometimes basic

30 fps cap!?

        Playtime: 2 hours total.

Computer Specs: Windows 10, 64-bit PC using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

Sea of Solitude Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/