and Roger Aligns Players with a Perspective Rarely Seen in the Medium

If you haven’t played and Roger (2025), reading this article will prevent you from having the intended experience, as I touch upon many aspects of its story that would be best experienced beforehand. I also describe some mechanics and story beats of Florence (2018).

The effect of and Roger depends on its subversion of some of the basic assumptions we bring to video game characters. Unless told otherwise, we assume that two characters who look different are different. We also assume, by default, that characters’ appearances correspond to their appearances to others in their world. Neither of these assumptions is true of and Roger. Initially, we appear to control a girl who has been kidnapped by a stranger. At other times, we play as a young woman who marries a baker and as an old woman with dementia. Eventually, players come to the realization that all of these characters are Sofia, a woman with dementia, and that the men she’s been interacting with have all been her husband and caregiver, Roger. That the story is presented non-chronologically, with both Sofia and Roger periodically assuming alternative appearances, are just some ways and Roger aligns players with the perspective of someone with dementia.

Another is through its gameplay. Later in Chapter 3, Sofia attempts to wash her hands. Players must turn on the tap, apply soap, lather, turn off the tap, and dry Sofia’s hands in the correct order three times to progress to the next vignette. It sounds simple enough until you realize that the buttons that perform these actions not only look identical but are in continuous motion and mixed together with decoys. Sounds of a racing heartbeat and dissonant music by Yasuhiro Nakashima express Sofia’s mounting frustration and anxiety. As I lost track of where the buttons were and directed Sofia to perform the incorrect sequence of actions, my own frustration mounted and my heart rate increased. Obviously this minigame isn’t capable of making me fully aware of what it is like to have dementia. And yet, after playing and Roger, I do feel like I have a better understanding of what both living with dementia and caring for someone with dementia might be like.

The specifics of what and Roger is doing come into focus when juxtaposed with one of its inspirations, Mountains’s Florence (2018). Sofia and Florence perform many of the same activities, but while toothbrushing is a simple matter of moving one’s finger or mouse side to side for Florence, it is a complex and confusing puzzle for Sofia. Mountains finds many clever analogies between its minigames and its narrative. For instance, players know that Florence’s date with Frish is going well by the way the puzzles representing their conversation get easier until there are just two pieces that move together in tandem. Conversely, the couple’s realization that they have drifted apart is represented by a puzzle that fails to stay together. And yet, none of Florence’s minigames aligned me with its protagonist quite the way that and Roger’s did.

In Games: Agency as Art, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen observes that “when we play games, we take on an alternate form of agency. We take on new goals and accept different sets of abilities, ones that may be at odds with our abilities, values, and goals outside of the game.” In and Roger, you don’t merely observe the struggles of a woman with dementia and a husband who attempts, often unsuccessfully, to provide adequate care; playing the game involves taking on Sofia’s physical and cognitive abilities such that even simple tasks of self-care are almost insurmountable challenges. Through engaging with games that represent disabilities through gameplay, not just through their narratives or aesthetics, games can “reshape cultural and personal conceptions of mental health, illness, disability, and accessibility,” Sky LaRell Anderson suggests in Ability Machines: What Video Games Mean for Disability.

There are also challenges, even dangers, to a medium that requires audience input. Games can both provide more visceral experiences and implicate the player in the ethics of what is happening more tangibly than novels or films. You aren’t just reading or watching someone commit a morally questionable act; you may be required to perform it yourself or have it performed on you. Especially given that one of and Roger’s tags was “romance,” I was confused and disturbed to be launched into what appeared to be a simulation of a child kidnapping. After the stranger pulled her underwear down, I had to turn the game off. I have daughters who are approaching the age Sofia appears to be at this point in the game. This wasn’t a scenario I wanted to imagine.

From this perspective, and Roger would, ideally, have trigger warnings for child kidnapping and sexual abuse. Even though that’s not what’s going on, some players may still be triggered and turn off the game before realizing what is actually happening. On Steam, the developer includes the following words of caution: “This game is a work of fiction. However, it depicts certain uncomfortable aspects of reality. We suggest that you only play this game when you feel confident that doing so would not overwhelm you.” TearyHand Studio couldn’t say more without spoiling the game, but this content advisory gives no indication of what sort of topics players will encounter in the game. Players affected by dementia or spousal abuse or those with negative experiences with Christianity ought to take care when engaging with and Roger. The game’s unequivocal conclusion that Sofia is better off with her husband, despite his confession to have hit her multiple times, is troubling.

In-depth conversations about and Roger have been stifled by a public games discourse that is primarily concerned with enticing people to purchase new games and thus is required to avoid spoilers. The needs of gamers who desire to go into and Roger knowing as little as possible and those who wish to avoid certain types of content are also at loggerheads with titles like and Roger. I wonder whether having robust trigger warnings in spoiler tags may be a possible solution.

For those who chose to engage, and Roger masterfully takes advantage of the affordances of video games to align players with a point of view that has rarely been represented in the medium. Though I will leave it to players with knowledge and experience caring for folks with dementia to weigh in about the quality of its representation.

I’m grateful for the perspectives members of the Gaming in the Wild Discord have shared, especially Zzzaac. And Roger is available on PC and Nintendo Switch.