Content warning for suicide, self-harm and mental illness.
There’s an overwhelming number of games to spend time playing even only in the free games section of popular gaming platform Steam. A lot of these freeware games happen to be low quality for a variety of potential reasons, but sometimes you can find a game of value. Visual novel “missed messages.” by Angela He is one such gem in the rough. Within its simple, misleading storytelling touching on themes of peer emotional support in crisis and grief, this game is one of the best visual novels in general and one many college students should be aware of.
Of course, here’s a necessary spoiler warning if you would rather play or watch the game first before reading this article. The game itself warns the audience before playing about the themes of self-harm and suicide as content warnings, which could bring up trauma. This article will be no different to digest the contents.
Let’s talk about the medium of the story before the synopsis. Visual novels are marketed as video games but fundamentally require a certain amount of reading, critical thinking and option selection, all varying, to convey the message they want you to get. Although they get a bad reputation for a multitude of reasons like being too sexual, not every visual novel is the same, like how not all movies are the same.
The scene is set at the beginning of the game with a college student, August, doing her homework in her dorm. August’s roommate, May, could later be heard arguing with her parents nearby. August suddenly gets an AirDrop from someone with the phone name “goth gf’s iPhone” with a meme attached. You have the option of continuing the study session, taking a break from your computer or talking to this fellow student. If you choose to continue talking to the goth girl, there’s an option to flirt with her by sending images back and forth to each other complimenting how the goth girl’s makeup looks. She then invites you to spend time with her in person.
Before leaving, May asks if August is heading out and sings to her for August’s birthday, ultimately telling her she’s grateful they’re friends.
The goth girl’s name is revealed to be Amy. They spend time together talking about relatively superfluous topics, before being interrupted by some frightening messages from May. She was saying that she was scared and reminded August how the two were such good friends. August turned off her phone when hanging out with Amy, so she didn’t see those messages.
Getting back to her dorm, August finds a note which tells her to call the police and to not open the door. You have the option of opening the door anyway, which leads to you finding May’s corpse.
As she mourns and processes what happens, August recalls the shallow and ephemeral pity others had for May, but August can’t forget that someone she loved and cared for killed herself.
If not for the content warnings, this would have come as a complete shock to most of the audience. The element of surprise, regardless of medium, is extremely cruel when something negative happens. But that’s life unfortunately.
After the first few playthroughs, it becomes more apparent that Amy is a red herring who distracts you from spending time with May, who desperately needs someone to talk to.
It may seem impossible to get the game to have August talk with May about her mental health through the game’s design, but it is possible according to the amount of ending achievements available. Looking online for a guide to get 100% of the achievements leads to different endings where May and August talk about what’s been going on.
You never know what someone else is going through, but even a little conversation can go a long way. Of course, it’s easier to see the signs in controlled media; it’s hard not to think you could have done more in retrospect when faced with the harsh reality of losing someone you loved or learning that they’re in pain, promoting survivor’s guilt. It’s difficult to notice the warning signs ahead of time. This game helps present what it’s like to live with that guilt.
Mental illness is increasingly common in college students and beyond. It’s considered by professionals a crisis in Gen Z. This is why emotional and psychological consciousness is integral for everyone you interact with whether you realize your power or not. You never know if even the simple act of listening could help someone struggling with mental illness. In a culture that promotes apathy and stigmatization over listening to each other open-mindedly, it’s the least we can do.
“missed messages.” could be an uncomfortable game for some with how it deals with suicide in such an upfront way, but it conveys an important story on the topic told in a unique way that many college students, especially those not conscious of mental health, need to hear. There are real people out there who struggle with aspects of suicide whether personally or within the people they care about who need all the support they could get. Learning about mental health literacy as a peer can affirm life and help heal universally. To Angela He: thank you for making art available for free that puts words to the effects of such an alarming phenomenon, helping people process and build a dialogue about it.