Video games can often reflect real-world issues and feelings. As mental health awareness has grown, more developers and storytellers are utilising games as a vehicle to say something, or to share an experience that is personal to them. Listed below are a range of games that were created to challenge how we think about mental health as well as help gamers cope with or understand their own mental health journey.
The award-winning Life is Strange is back with Life Is Strange True Colours. Players take on the role of Alex Chen who has long suppressed her "Curse" The ability to experience, absorb and manipulate the strong emotions of others, which she sees as blazing, coloured auras.
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Another Day is a narrative driven game that portrays the daily struggle experienced by those living in isolation in a claustrophobic environment during lockdown while experiencing depression and anxiety.
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The player inherits their grandfather's old farm plot in the beautiful town of Stardew Valley
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Pause: Daily Mindfulness is a free self-help app that provides many mindfulness techniques that are best suited to the user.
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You Feel Like Shit, otherwise known as YouFeelLikeShit Is a website that is aimed at helping you ground yourself whether you've woken up and had a bad day or at the end of the day perhaps something hasn't gone quite right.
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"Stay inside. Stay safe. Don't let anyone in.". That's what they told you to do, and now you're alone. You've been alone for a while, well... except for Lamb shank, the strangest dog you've ever seen. Taking on the role of an unknown person stuck in an apartment building with a horrific purple presence looming in the distance.
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Hymble Ventures is a 2.5D sci-fantasy platform game about an insect-like alien on the autism spectrum. Players join Hymble on their adventure through Hymborgia, Eukaterra, to find and discover a mysterious, wandering, maegent.
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The Samaritans Self Help App is designed to help people keep track of mood and also help you in many different ways.
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In Sound Mind is a psychological survival horror game developed by We Create Stuff and published by Modus Games.
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Rainbow Billy: The Curse Of The Leviathan tasks players into saving the world from the big bad Leviathan who wants to corrupt the world.
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Lake lets players take on the role of temporary postal worker Meredith Weiss in a fictional 1980's Lake-town.
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Psychonauts 2 puts players back in Raz's shoes for a new adventure that will take you on a wild ride in Double Fines wonderful creation.
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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 lets players fly in any location from around the world, whether it's the Alps or a small village in Yorkshire.
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Sym is an indie platformer that puts you in the shoes of Josh, a teenage boy trying to navigate life with social anxiety.
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Lost Words Beyond The Page introduces players to Izzy and her diary. Players will traverse Izzy's diary during a tough period in her life.
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Described as Lifeline meets Lord of the Rings, Betwixt is a choose-your-own-adventure game in which the only way to survive is to face yourself.
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A Hero's Guide To Gardening puts you in the shoes of Noomi who sets off for her first summer at Camp Pitch Pine in where she hopes to become a heroic adventurer.
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The Space In Between will take you on a journey of self-discovery from themes of discovering more about her Asian-American identity with mental health discussion also featuring in the game.
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Dynamic seasons change everything at the world’s greatest automotive festival in Forza Horizon 4.
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What Comes After is a side-scrolling adventure that focuses on Vivi on her journey of learning to love herself.
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Sea of Solitude takes players on a personal journey of a young woman’s loneliness in a beautiful and evolving world where nothing is what it seems.
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Described as a game of tranquillity through the art of matching pieces of Ruya in the world of her dreams.
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Follow the story of reunited twins Tyler and Alyson, who travel back to Alaska to sell their childhood home.
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Tetris is back, in a new and mesmerising way.
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