Single Player

According to a research from 2013, 9% of the young who play video games become addicts. The most popular games are the realistic ones, where the main features are creativity and aggression and where the young players get used to the sight of killing. Addiction to video games is the haven of the lonely, unsocial ones who feel unable to fit in this world. Due to these games, they get carried away by the virtual world in which they can get wherever they want and become whoever they wish.
Sylvia is the only parent to David, 17. With the help of a virtual reality headset, the boy has developed a daily habit of becoming the Hammerer, the slave warrior, who rises against his master, and who fights his way through several levels to kill him. Sylvia struggles with the inertia of witnessing losing his son to the game. For David the real world has gradually faded away with all its colours transforming into virtual reality. The more his mom has tried to protect his boy, the more introverted and violent David has become.
This is where our story begins. Now mother and son are alienated. They hardly talk to each other. Sylvia has to sleep in a locked bedroom. Moreover, she has had to remove all the possible tools that could be dangerous including knives, scissors.
When David is getting ready to finish the final level in the game, he spends 2 days non-stop in his room. His mother makes a desperate decision: she nicks his son’s VR headset and closes herself up with it in her bedroom. Little does she know about the angst and fury that the seizure creates in David and how far he is willing to go in order to get his headset back.
Right after his first anger outburst, he quickly realizes how he can use his new skills he gained through the video game to find his way to the headset. He truly believes that he has become the Hammerer, the slave warrior in reality, who has to accomplish his mission and slay his owner. He fabricates a hammer with which he manages to get into his mother’s bedroom. Once he is in, he starts to step towards his mom with the weapon in his hands.
While this short film intends to depict the desperate fight of the mother to save his son, it also tells the story of the awakening of the maniac as he comes to terms with his own addiction. The title “gamer” aims to refer to the lonely struggle each of them has to deal with to fight against the issue of addiction. Towards the end one thing becomes obvious: if they want to win this war, mother and son must unite.