Part I: Read the article
The central argument of The Rhetoric of Video Games is that video games are powerful forms of expression and persuasion. Through procedural rhetoric, games communicate ideas not simply through words, images, or stories, but through rules, processes, and consequences. By making choices and experiencing their outcomes, players explore models of real-world social, economic, and political systems. Games can therefore reveal hidden assumptions, reinforce or challenge ideologies, and encourage critical thinking. The educational value of games lies in their ability to critically examine the systems and values embedded in gameplay. Ultimately, Bogost encourages us to move beyond simply playing games toward understanding, questioning, and even designing the arguments that games make.
Part II: Play
Adventures With Anxiety is an interactive story created by Nicky Case in 2019. Its tags include comedy, mental health, and narrative. The game was probably made for people with anxiety disorders, although I think its potential audience is broader. It can also help people who do not experience severe anxiety understand how anxious thinking can influence everyday behavior. I played through the full story and experienced all the branching storyline, which took approximately an hour. The game can be played here: Adventures With Anxiety on itch.io.
The most unusual premise is that I do not play as the human experiencing anxiety; instead, I play as Anxiety itself! I am a hyperactive red wolf as the representation of anxiety, see Figure 1. My job is to “protect” the human by constantly identifying possible dangers, see Figure 2. Eating alone, attending a party, relationships, social judgment, and even an ordinary piece of bread can become potential threats. This perspective makes the game much more interesting than simply telling a story about an anxious person. Instead, I actively participate in producing anxious thoughts.
Figure 1: Screenshot of description of “me” as a the Anxiety
Figure 2: Screenshot of the player choosing what Anxiety says to the human.
Genre is important to how this message works. Although itch.io labels it a visual novel, I would describe it more specifically as a comedic interactive narrative mixed with a parody of a battle game. At several moments, the game visually presents the human and Anxiety as if they were opponents in a fight, see Figure 3. However, instead of attacking with weapons, I attack with thoughts. The interaction is mostly choosing dialogue rather than mastering complicated controls, so my attention remains on the psychological meaning of each choice. The game therefore uses the strengths of interactive fiction. Instead of observing anxiety from the outside, I repeatedly have to decide, “What should I make this person afraid of?”
Figure 3: Screenshot of opponents in a fight
This connects strongly to Bogost’s idea of procedural rhetoric. The game makes an argument through what the player is required to do. Anxiety is not explained only through text. Its logic becomes a procedure: notice something → imagine danger → warn the human → escalate the threat → influence the human’s behavior. Nicky Case described the game as an “augmented self-reflection” tool in which choices encourage players to recognize and express their own fears. In that sense, the interaction itself communicates the message.
The audiovisual design makes this process especially effective. Every time important words appear, there are strong sound effects, making Anxiety feel intrusive and impossible to ignore. The animations are exaggerated and sometimes genuinely hilarious. The wolf changes facial expressions constantl: confident, terrified, excited, angry, and eventually completely speechless when the human begins resisting it.
Figure 4: Anxiety displaying an exaggerated facial expression.
One of my favorite moments occurs when the human challenges Anxiety and the wolf seems to have no idea how to respond, see Figure 5. The comedy matters because it changes my relationship with the character. Anxiety can feel terrifying from inside one’s mind, but when it becomes a ridiculous red creature panicking over everything, its claims suddenly appear less authoritative. Even the “curl up” animation is absurdly dramatic and funny, see Figure 6.
[Figure 5: Anxiety becoming speechless after the human resists.]
[Figure 6: The exaggerated “curl up” animation.]
This also influenced how I think about empathy in games. Interestingly, the game does not simply ask me to empathize with the anxious human. By making me play Anxiety, it also asks me to understand Anxiety’s motivation. Eventually, I realize that Anxiety is not purely an enemy. It is trying to protect the human from physical harm, rejection, or becoming a bad person—but its protective system has become excessive. The message, therefore,is about developing a healthier relationship with fear. Case explicitly says they hoped the game could help players understand how anxiety works with humor and perhaps reduce the “fear of fear itself.”
Its mechanics and narrative are unusually aligned: the story says anxiety continuously generates threats, while the mechanic literally requires me to generate those threats. There is limited player freedom, but I think that constraint strengthens the rhetoric. I cannot simply decide to stop being anxious, just as a person cannot always switch anxiety off.
For my own current and future games, I would especially borrow its use of personification, exaggerated animation, sound effects, and perspective reversal. A relatively simple choice-based interaction becomes memorable because the mechanics, character design, humor, and message all reinforce one another. Adventures With Anxiety made me laugh frequently, but it also made anxiety feel understandable rather than abstract. That combination of humor and psychological insight is what made its message successful for me.
