Not fix yourself. Not change yourself. Because living with what Alta has doesn’t mean she’s broken. She doesn’t need to be fixed. She just needs to learn how to live with it. To manage it. To understand it. And really, I could go on and on and on about how Wanderstop is a masterclass in depicting the aftermath of childhood trauma and undiagnosed mental illness.

If you’re looking for a game that will spell everything out for you, tie up every loose end, and send you off with a checklist of "things you have learned"—probably not.

Honestly, I’m not doing this opening sequence any justice. It isn’t like any other cozy game. It’s dark, and its depiction of exhaustion and burnout is visceral. You can see it in the art, the colors shifting and pulsing with her state of mind.

But even with that small complaint, Wanderstop remains one of the most beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant games I’ve ever played.

Most of us grew up never really knowing why we are the way we are, brushing things off as personality quirks or personal failings, only to hit adulthood and go, "Oh. Oh, so that’s why I struggle with this. Oh, so that’s why I react that way. Oh, so that’s why I can never just let things go."

If you've ever worked yourself to the point of exhaustion, blamed yourself for just "not trying hard enough" when you know full well your resources are depleted, or felt like a failure for not being the best in the world at something – you might need to put some time aside for Wanderstop.

Instead, she finds Boro, the kind and charming owner of a Wanderstop Gameplay tea shop called Wanderstop, who presents her with a deceptively simple choice: rest and make some tea for a bit, or push herself to press on at any cost.

Operating the tea machine itself is rather uncomplicated for such a complicated looking contraption. A tall ladder rotates around the giant glass pots in the center of the tea shop – you climb to the very top and pull a rope to fill the first pot with water, then climb down to smack the bellows, keeping the thermometer bar balanced to get the water to a perfect boil.

Legendary indie dev returns with a farming sim that couldn't be more different from the game that made them famous, all about an ex-warrior who hates the cozy life

The forest in Wanderstop—the place where Elevada starts to heal—isn’t a cure. The voice inside her head doesn’t stop. It doesn’t erase her struggles. It only gives her the information she needs to start working on herself. And that? That’s all healing ever really is.

Ivy Road has done an incredible job of showing what it’s like to live with this specific mental struggle without ever putting a label on it.

I want to know that they all reunite in the real world. I want to know that Alta gets to see Gerald again, and the Demon Hunter, and Nana and Monster, and Zenith, and Boro. I want to know what happens to them. But it’s out of my hands. And that’s the whole point.

And the game makes you feel it. The way the environment subtly changes as Alta’s state of mind shifts. The way the music sometimes grows distant, hollow, as if pulling away from you.

Each one of these games fulfills what each and every one of us (well, at least me and everyone I know) secretly dreams of. The real fantasy isn't magic or alchemy or secret woodland creatures—it’s escaping the clutches of capitalism.