Reader, do you trust me? Hm, maybe that’s a bit broad. Reader, do you trust Kotaku to recommend a game with its whole chest, even if we can’t really tell you what it’s about? and Roger (yes, that’s how the title is stylized) is one of the most memorable games of 2025, and explaining its premise would ultimately ruin, well, everything about it. So what I’ll do is talk about everything else.
and Roger is a narrative adventure game that is playable on Switch and PC. It’s only one hour long and is evocative of other puzzle-based narrative games like 2018’s Florence. It’s a gut-punch of a narrative told almost entirely through its puzzle-driven interface. It’s clunky, almost like the QWOP of narrative adventure games, but when you see it all the way through, you’ll understand why. It’s also only $5. That’s about the same as a Starbucks drink, and you could play it all the way through on your lunch break. I truly cannot overstate just how special that 60 minutes is, and how well it integrates game design into its storytelling.
I would hope the short runtime and cheap price tag would be enough for you to say, “Ah, what the hell,” and download it onto your PC or Switch, but times are tough, and not everyone likes to go into a purchase blind. So I’m gonna put a spoiler warning below, and then get into the actual reveals of and Roger. If you’ve been sold on it, come back to this write-up later. If you need a little more of a nudge, read on.
and Roger tells the story of a husband and wife late in their lives. The woman has been diagnosed with a terrible case of dementia, and doing the most mundane things has become an incredible challenge for her. Most of the tasks you do in and Roger are communicated through unmarked buttons on the screen, and you have to memorize what each of them is when you press them so you can do each action in the right order. For example, there’s a scene where you’re just washing your hands, and turning on the water, dispensing soap onto your hands, and scrubbing them clean are mapped to different buttons, so you have to memorize what each of them does and pick them in the proper sequence. and Roger makes everything you do in the game a disorienting chore, but that’s exactly what your character is feeling as she tries to just exist in her home with her longtime husband.
The reveal of the main character’s illness is gradual, but when it’s made clear, it puts everything into perspective. She appears as a child in some scenes and is scared of a man who says he’s always lived in her home. She doesn’t recognize this stranger, while he–her husband, of course–is doing everything he can to hold it together and make her comfortable in her final years.
If you’re not keen on frustration and friction, and Roger is probably not for you, but it so successfully executes its premise that I have to at least recommend you try it. With a $5 price tag and a one-hour run time, what do you have to lose?
