‘Adventures With Anxiety’ Casts You as a Person’s Nervous Thoughts

Adventures With Anxiety has you helping a person by reminding them about every terrible, awful thing that could happen to them RIGHT THIS SECOND.

You’ve been recreated as a wolf-shaped spirit of anxiety, and you need to make sure your human knows about all of the bad things that could happen to them. Eating a sandwich and minding your own business? You’re only eating alone because NO ONE LOVES YOU, you’re WASTING PRECIOUS WORKING TIME because you’re eating, and did you not think of all of the terrible things WHITE BREAD DOES TO US? Your human will be so thankful that you’re there to make sure they’re concentrating on the bad things so they can stay safe.

Playing as someone’s anxiety should be a depressing affair, but the game uses a lighthearted art style for our stressed wolf spirit, making its claims seem ridiculous and easy to dismiss. While anyone going through anxiety surely isn’t going to be able to just cast these feelings aside, it’s almost to see anxiety presented like an overly-stressed cartoonish creature. Its problems seem so small when looked at through this lens, which, for me, is honestly helping me see how my own mind can be just as absurd with the stuff it gets so wrapped up about.

I’m not saying Adventures With Anxiety is calming all of my stressors, but by giving them a lighthearted shape and form, it’s given me a tool to soothe myself when things can be really getting to me. Which is a wonderful thing to do with such a short, yet touching, experience.

Adventures With Anxiety is playable now on the developer’s site and itch.io.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.

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