Hands down, Gris, was a extremely cathartic experience for me. It's a beautiful exposition and game experience that brings you through the five stages of grief. As a psych student, I enjoyed the psychological influences but as a human who has experienced loss, it brought me to tears. I highly recommend it.
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It might be about grief but I feel like it has nothing to say or offer about such a topic. No unique perspective or substance to make someone cope better with their own experience. As basic as it gets. Just an exercise in style and presentation.
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I like that it's open to interpretation, the imagery and foes used can mean different things to different people. Sometimes, not saying anything at all can provide something different from a clearly stated storyline. The thing I love most about video games is the escapism and different experiences it offers. Games like Harvest Moon and Star Dew Valley help break away from the chaos of daily life. Puzzle games can challenge us when we feel we aren't being challenged enough. Action games can get our hearts pumping and bring something exciting to our lives. For me, there's no wrong way to play or enjoy single-player games (multiplayer games can be great for socialization or competition but there are toxic and unpleasant aspects to it). In the right conditions, a game doesn't necessarily have to be special on its own but what it means to you, is up to you!
When life gets me down, sometimes I just need to tend to my little animal crossing village for 30 minutes to give me a much-needed boost!
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So... why not suggest any of those games then?
I get it that everyone's different and handles things differently but wouldn't a depressing game about depression (which I presume Gris is; I haven't personally played it because I immediately crossed it off my radar exactly because games like that just make me feel worse) generally not be a good suggestion for someone who's in a depressive mood?
I looked through OP's Library and would, unironically, recommend something like Hell Yeah! instead. Because even though it has a lot of cartoonish violence, it's dumb and silly and doesn't ever take itself seriously. Aka, it's light and funny.
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It's like listening to sad music when you're sad or upbeat songs when you're happy lol, it just helps connect and bring out your emotions ya know? Like you aren't alone in how you feel. Bring your feelings out, feel them, cope with them, and move on. Everyone has ways they cope with feelings and knowing what works best for you is key to working through your own feelings. Some people need to be cheered up when they're sad or going through something, I like to give myself space to feel my feelings since I tend to repress, deny my feelings, and move through situations without processing how I feel. This can bite me in the butt later when I become totally overwhelmed and then it gets so overwhelming that I can't cope and break down, which is really bad for my mental health and life/responsibilities. So more dramatic or emotional games like To the Moon or even This War of Mine can connect me to how I feel (regret, loss, frustration, like I'm losing control of circumstances I can't change, etc.) and allows me to just feel that way. Sometimes we want comfort and sometimes we just gotta cry it out.
Feeling sad or depressed is not a bad thing, we can all feel that way, what matters is that we find ways to cope (whatever way that may be) and then we get the strength to keep going. Whether it's playing something fun and bright, like Calico, an RPG/choices matter game that gives you a sense of control over a digital world (Mass Effect/Dragon Age series, Saints Row series, Skyrim, etc.), or a simulation game that gets you into an entirely different headspace (Sims 3/4, Harvest Moon/Rune Factory series, Plague Inc., etc.). I have tons of games I love to play and can recommend, from the hundreds of Visual novels to my beloved classic Harvest Moon games. I don't typically like puzzle or platformer-style games like Gris, but I still genuinely enjoyed it.
I recommended Gris because it's the one associated closest with depression and the trauma of loss in my experiences. It goes through all five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance, which is the most important part of overcoming grief and trauma. (Despite being called the five stages of grief, it can be applied to recovery from other traumatic events beyond death and loss.) Eventually, we have to learn to come to terms with our trauma and gain acceptance over what we've endured and what we can't change while moving forward and making positive changes where we can. That's not an easy thing, it's often painful and we don't always experience a clear, linear journey of healing. While Gris doesn't start off bright and happy and has darker moments, it gets better and brighter as the main character moves forward. It's enjoyable and not horribly sad because it relies largely on abstract imagery to convey the themes, it's beautiful, bittersweet, and relatable.
Sorry if I rambled a little lol, I'm super passionate about mental health and gaming. There are lots of other great recommendations so I hope the OP and anyone else can find something that helps make their life easier and that they're doing ok!
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In my personal experience, normal visual novels are quite good for that, by normal I mean non-hentai ones, which happen to mostly be the anime ones. They usually have a really good immersion level, and it helps you disassociate yourself in the moment. One that I really enjoyed recently is Emily is away <3 (it's the 3rd game in the series, but they are not connected, so you can play this one if you want to or play all 3 of them if you think you might enjoy them, the first one is free on steam.)
Another recommendation in this genre would be the Simulacra games if you don't mind the horror aspect of it.
And also the two Vampire: The Masquerade - The New York games are amazing as well.
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Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was probably the game that has affected me the most on a personal level. It definitely helped me accept and cope with my own.
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postal, hatred, gta, thrill kill, the suffering, manhunt.
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Celeste, Gris for some healing
Desktop Dungeons is a great mind kidnapper. Filled long hours in a sad time for me.
A Short Hike if you need some wholesomeness.
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For me, it's something mindless and easy: for example, games like Grim Dawn turn into relaxing clickers with the help of a trainer. Also, I spent the next few weeks after my dad's death playing Mass Effect (all 4 games) and Days Gone (literally, I woke up, played for 10-12 hours straight and slept for the remaining 12-14 hours. Needless to say, my psychiatrist was unhappy with me because I wasn't dealing with the trauma, just making myself numb). What didn't help in my case at all is games about dealing with death: tried Spiritfarer about half a year later after the same event and ended up crying hard.
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I know that's not true for everyone but I believe that sometimes a good cry can really do help, especially after feelings and emotions have been pushed back and bottled up for however long. There's also nothing wrong with crying, ever. Hope you're feeling and are doing better now.
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If you want to take your mind off something negative, playing a game that doesn't remind you of it might be a better idea. Something that has a complex progression system that keeps you engaged and entertained, and distracted for long, maybe check the latest RPGs and play something you seem to like, my go-to would be a FromSoftware game, but there is Horizon, Mass Effect or Hogwarts Legacy if you are looking for something lighter.
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maybe some long game that'll immerse you in another world? Fallout New Vegas? XCOM2?
or something more relaxed on average like Subnautica or Empyrion?
but personally in terms of catharsis I've found music the most effective
best wishes
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tetris effect is a very meditative experience of a game, if you have a good headset and maybe a joystick for the vibration it can help take your mind out of very tough to deal with things
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1003590/Tetris_Effect_Connected/
other games that have helped me are games that have some simple things, like red dead redemption 2, it might be a bit hard to stop thinking about stuff but whipping out a fishing rod and trying to catch a fish and just try to focus on the scenery has helped a little bit.
nothing really helps me more than tetris, for some reason tho.
i just cannot recommend the tetris effect enough, no matter what is happening, it almost never fails to make me forget stuff and just focus on the present
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Honestly for me playing multiplayer games helped more than any story based ones. They make you focus on gameplay and be more in the moment,be social etc. Helps take mind off things more than passively watching cutscenes with bad writing. Video game writing/storytelling is just so woeful,a book about trauma of any kind that's considered mediocre in literature will still be about a thousand times more substantial than what's praised in gaming.
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Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an adorable game that teaches you to go easy on yourself and believe that you can do great things even when your depression/anxiety/trauma tells you that you can't... Lots of puzzles, secret areas, calming music and cute characters to help! You can relax and colour in every screen while exploring and unlock a bunch of different brush styles/clothing! The story of the 2 characters helped me feel understood in a way that I needed :)
Games that will get you distracted for a really long time: Stardew Valley (very special game to me), Terraria
Cute games where you help others and the characters feel like wholesome friends: Littlewood, Cozy Grove, Toem, Lil Gator Game, Undertale, Deltarune, Garden Story, any Animal Crossing if you own a Nintendo console :)
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Rakuen, a game about learning to let go and Mr. Saitou, a game about the struggles to find meaning in life with a more lighthearted approach. I absolutely love them both so very much.
I'm currently really into Sun Haven which keeps me busy and distracted when I just want my head to be quiet for a while. It is similar to Stardew Valley just with a lot more magic.
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I strongly recommend Firewatch. It's themes are relevant to what you asked about, and it helped me during a rough time in my life.
Best wishes to you.
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This might sound like an odd selection but the games I remember playing to get through grief in recent years were Rise of the Tomb Raider, Faerie Solitaire, and Bejeweled 3. In general anything that's mechanically predictable and allows me to methodically tick boxes off a checklist for a few days seems to work for me, unlocking a bunch of achievements works well to take the mind off from constantly thinking about death.
About the healing process it's much harder for me to make any suggestion, specially because it's hard to know what would be that thing that makes something click in place, it can literally be any piece of media/art as long as it speaks to what you're feeling and it comes to the right time. Sometimes closure comes from introspection, sometimes I just have a weird dream that's basically my subconscious screaming at me about something.
I know you were asking about trauma in a more general sense but I started writing and just went off with personal experience because ultimately that's the only thing I feel qualified to talk about.
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Wow you beat me to it! I was about to write a paragraph describing this beautiful game experience.
Best part was that there was no particular story or dialogue or instruction. Every player's 'journey' is personal to therm. Truely a gem!!
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If you're looking for something weird and beautiful, I can't recommend Anodyne 2 enough; it's one of my favorite games of all time, and it does a great job handling its subject matter. You don't have to play the first one to get what's going on, but there is one piece of extra content in 2 that connects them that you can play after finishing it.
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Hard to say, as i believe everyone will react different on games and especially if you have things that might trigger.. (trail and error?)
When i had a burnout what worked for me was Thehunter Call of the Wild (they also have the Angler now) beautiful landscapes and nature sounds.. its a hunting game but just exploring was relaxing.. i remember just walking around for hours not even shooting the gun..
But as i stated, i think its best to see what are the personal triggers and what is relaxing and takes the mind off things..
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I don't know about helping with trauma in particular, but I do feel that "This Strange Realm of Mine" did help me with not feeling alone in my issues. I've had social anxiety problems all my life, and that game was the first one where I just came across a piece of media where it addressed it in a way where I could relate. It's just something about how the game portrayed social anxiety that resonated and made me realize other people had my exact same problems. Something I had already been told over the years, but never really believed until I played that game.
There's a bunch of other issues and problems raised in that game too (including loss), most of which didn't land the same way for me... probably a matter of perspective of course. Regardless, it's been years since I played it now, but it legit had a meaningful impact on my life so I thought I'd mention it.
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Anyone has some suggestions for games that help when going through something traumatic? Anything that has maybe helped you personally at such a moment in your lives, to either take your mind off the trauma, or later during the healing process?
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