Trying to convey the impact, consequences or difficulties of.a mental health issue is incredibly difficult to do. With my own history of alcohol addiction, trying to explain to someone how I think, why I see things a certain way and how my actions seem crazy and illogical is virtually impossible. I have long held the belief that only someone who has been through addiction can understand addiction completely. I am lucky in that my friends and family get this as well, they try to understand, they ask questions but we all ultimately accept that they can never fully understand, and that’s fine. Books and films try their best, but I think they rarely succeed.
Saying all that however, games can get closer to sharing understanding of mental health due to their unique interactivity, which brings me to and Roger. This is a game that tackles a specific mental health issue from the perspective of the protagonist and their family in an incredibly powerful experience that I think deserves a really wide audience. It was developed by Teary Hand Studio in Japan and released in July 2025 on the Switch, Mac and PC. While I will talk about some of the mechanics of the game, I won’t go into much detail as I think the game is best played from cold, with no knowledge of what it entails. The game does start however with a warning that it can be a tough play, that you may get involved emotionally, and advises taking a break if it becomes overwhelming. This is not just some kind of disclaimer though, it really should be heeded. This only a short game, less than 2 hours long, and I had to take a break half way through. A friend of mine has a good phrase for this situation, “I’d like to talk about what’s going on with me if you have the spoons to deal with it”. You do need to make sure you have the spoons to start this game.
So how does it play? At heart, it’s a visual novel with puzzle elements. There are zero options, zero instructions, the game kicks off with some familiar internet style pages, then opens with a young girl waking up in her bed. We then follow her thoughts and actions, like brushing teeth, getting breakfast etc as the story unfolds. Thats all I’m going to say on the plot. and characters. The puzzles are all pretty simple, but have some obtuse controls and concepts. Since I played it, I have seen some criticism of this, but those people are completely missing the point. The controls, objectives and solutions to these puzzles are an integral part of the whole experience, this is not a game teaching you mechanics as you go, it is trying to show you the world from the protagonists perspective, and does that beautifully. The games visuals are hand drawn and simple, using pastel colours, but work really well.
And Roger pulls no punches. It doesn’t sugar coat anything and really builds sympathy between the player and the main characters. This game broke my heart a fair few times, I don’t think I have ever been affected som much emotionally by a game, was literally in tears at times. But I came away from it at the end with a feeling that I experienced something special. How this is nominated in the Games For Impact award at the Games Awards is beyond me, but we have a small developer here, a small publisher, and I think this needs some word of mouth to get noticed by people and find a more people.
This is a very short review, but to say anything else would be too much, I think it’s a brilliant piece of work that tries to explain the impact of mental health issues in an honest way. I am really grateful that I found this game, it is definitely up there for my personal game of the year, and would encourage anyone with the spoons for it to give this title a go, and pass the word on to others about it.
