And Roger | Nintendo Switch 2 Review

Publisher: Kodansha
Developer: TearyHand

Nintendo Switch 2 Review

*Disclaimer: I was sent the code for this game on Nintendo Switch 2 in return for a review; all opinions are mine and mine alone.

I don't know about anyone else in the UK, but this heat has had me in a chokehold, and gaming has been a struggle, especially when I wanted to play. Luckily, I was given the opportunity to review a short indie game called And Roger. It took me around an hour to finish it, and boy oh boy, it took me on an emotional ride within that hour. And Roger was developed by TearyHand. They have taken on a topic that can be hard to portray, especially within the gaming world; they managed to hit the nail on the head and pull at my heartstrings, causing me to sit and sob once I finished playing

And Roger is a click-and-point game with puzzles, but in a very interesting and clever way. The puzzles are based on memory and patterns. I'm going to have to skirt over a lot of this and be vague, as describing what happens too much will ruin the experience for other players. There is a whole barrel of emotions that are thrown into this game, making players feel them with the simple use of puzzles. There are 3 main characters within the game: Roger, Sofia and Dad, each equally as important as the others. They merge the story into an emotional world of fear, hurt, happiness, distress, and so much more.

Early on you will learn the game is about an illness, I won't go into much more detail about what it is as puzzles are what portray how this illness makes one of the characters feel, throwing you into their mind and expierencing what theey are in them very moments, you have to appalud the developers on being able to do this through the use of a simple point and click game. The visuals may be simplistic through the use of simple hand-drawn graphics, yet they work; they keep your mind on what is going on and wanting to know how the story will progress.

I found there to be a lot of hand-holding throughout my gameplay, not that I'm complaining, as it makes what you are meant to do glaringly obvious. Obstacles are meant to be put in your way; nothing is meant to be straightforward, and it's meant to frustrate players. The time it took me to get through the game zoomed by in no time. I actually didn't want to get to the end as I was worried about how the story would end, and I didn't want to end up more upset. Even though the game is based around how heartbreaking an illness can be, it also sheds a light on all the good that can happen in a person's life in the lead-up to it. To me, those moments are what can help a person push through and maybe keep a little bit of light in the darkest of times.

I'm not sure everyone will enjoy playing through this, especially if they have a loved one who they have lost to an illness and had to watch deteriorate. What I can say is this game is a great way to shed light on how these situations in life affect people. 

Have a cosy day

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