While I think people normally come to games for something a little more action-oriented in some way to help unwind, there’s no doubt that slower-paced and more story-driven affairs that can be reflective in nature also have appeal. Rolling with a top-down look and feel, Next of Kin starts out on a positive note, following a married couple moving into a new house and looking forward to their future. Unfortunately, as in life, the honeymoon phase doesn’t last for long and the experience takes on a very different tone.

It starts with your character’s wife, Martha, missing from bed one morning and some blood on the floor. Worse, it appears that some time has passed, but your character doesn’t have any memory of what has happened. From there your task is to explore, talk to people, and try to find artifacts that will help your character piece together what has happened and reminisce over fleeting thoughts of better times. Unfortunately, over the course of a few hours you won’t find that there’s going to be a happy ending, but it can still make for a compelling story if you’re ready to receive it.

Having multiple family members who’ve struggled with mental illness, sometimes pretty severely, I’ve found games that deal with the subject to be a bit of a minefield. Some end up feeling disrespectful, treating it simply as a plot device, while others take more care to take what can be a challenging look at the pain of the people suffering from it as well as what can be the trauma for those around them. While the gameplay itself is a bit simplistic, it at least does a reasonable job of moving through the game’s story effectively while showing a fraught topic a fair amount of respect.