and Roger review

I’ll be honest: I almost didn’t write this review. That not because TearyHand Studio’s and Roger isn’t worth your time and money; it totally is. But because the act of describing it feels like it could undermine the feeling of discovery and ultimately the game’s impact. So, if you’re even the slightest bit interested in an experience that engaging the mind and heart, skip this and head directly into the eShop. But if you absolutely want to know what the game’s about, I’ll keep things as spoiler-free and as ambiguous as possible.

At its core, and Roger is an interactive experience controlled entirely through a cursor that’s moved with the left analog joystick and a single button. The game dishes out a succession of self-contained vignettes across a trio of chapters. You’ll click things, drag sliders, follow sequences, and trace on-screen paths. None of these tasks is particularly difficult and they almost feel like Warioware-style micro-games. And given the lack of any instructions, the toughest part might be figuring out what exactly to do.

One Button, All the Feels

Before long, you’ll realize that every event is a metaphorical take on everyday tasks. Early on, you’re asked to help the protagonist brush her teeth. You’re given a handful of unlabeled buttons and no instructions. As such, you’ll have to fumble with which button turns on the faucet which one pumps toothpaste, and which one finally gets the brush moving. Yes, it’s all intentionally clunky.

There’s also a bit of mild frustration that’s totally intentional. The game want you to experience what its protagonist feels. It does so through the most mundane of acts: washing hands, turning a doorknob, dialing a phone number. These aren’t puzzles in any conventional sense because they won’t stump you for long. Instead, the intent is to convey a sense of disorientation, almost like you’re performing these tasks for the first time. And here’s the important thing: collectively, they carry an emotional weight that might just sneak up on you.

The Mundane Has Meaning

Yes, these light puzzles represent everyday activities that we probably don’t think about as we accomplish them. You’ll connect broken lines that represent threads of conversation, work through memorization sequences that mirror the act of recalling something slippery, and cook up a hearty dinner. Here, the mundane, at what we often take for granted, becomes the focus. The game’s cleverest moments are when it bends the rules to escalate the sense of disorientation. Sometimes, extra buttons spawn on-screen. Other moments, the controls become a bit more elusive, requiring a rhythmic tapping.

But it’s all part of and Roger’s design. And I can’t say more than that. You really don’t want me to.

Of Panels and Pathos

Visually, and Roger is a great-looking experience. The game’s illustrations are clean, hand-drawn, and presented in a comic book layout. Meanwhile, the game’s palette is deliberately sparse, allowing a splash of color to direct our gaze around panels. There’s some color-coding that goes on, with darker grays and black during more somber moments, while warm oranges and vibrant blues highlight a halcyon flashback.

and Roger isn’t for everyone. While the game’s deliberately uncooperative elements eventually became revelatory, I realize not everyone is up for that kind of experience. As Oscar Wilde once said, “One man’s poetry is another man’s poison”. That said, this is a game that shows what the medium is capable of doing. Here, even the simple act of pressing a button, when given the proper content, is capable of generating empathy. At $5, the only wrong move is walking past it.

and Roger was played on Switch with review code provided by the publisher.