While I love to challenge myself with roguelikes, or hit the tracks with great racing games, I’ll admit that I have a weakness for things that are simply weird, especially when they can make me laugh. There’s no question that with its odd premise, often unusual characters, and sometimes very strange issues that your clients are dealing with, that Vampire Therapist is a great source of things to giggle about. What helps to further set it apart though is a sense of compassion beneath it all, and that it can act as a way to introduce players to some psychological concepts that may actually be helpful.

You’ll play the game as Sam Walls, a vampire who has been alive for a few centuries and who has been through some phases in his afterlife. After spending a substantial amount of time living a much more violent life, he’s had a turn of heart and is now looking to help others of his kind work through what he sees as a number of self-imposed issues. In order to help further develop these new skills to help others he’s found his way to the door of Andromachos, a vampire renowned for his wisdom in this area after surviving through thousands of years. It thankfully turns out that their goals and perspectives are aligned, and so you’ll play through the game learning more and more cognitive behavioral therapy concepts and working with other vampires to understand and confront their issues in the process.

If you’re down for spending your time simply enjoying loads of great dialogue, quirky characters, and sometimes some pretty provocative conversations, this should be fun. The game’s art, writing, and voice acting are all superb, and the fact that the developers consulted with licensed therapists to properly convey and talk about these concepts is pretty clear based on the results. By the end, you’ll be armed with an arsenal of different concepts that you’ll demonstrate an understanding of by properly recognizing them in your patients. The fact that the game is pretty forgiving and almost instructive when you make mistakes is both refreshing and encouraging, as it really feels like a part of the goal is for the game to be instructional in its own way. I can say that while the few mini games included do serve as temporary distractions, that for the most part they add little to the experience, and if anything they could have used more work to feel more on par with the game’s conversational storytelling. If you’re down for something equal parts entertaining and instructive, this may be an odd duck worth spending some time with.