The Average Everyday Adventures of Samantha Browne

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The Average Everyday Adventures of Samantha Browne on Steam

MSRP: Free

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Release: 4/19/16

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The Average Everyday Adventures of Samantha Browne is closer to a visual novel or a choose-your-own-adventure story than an actual game.  Except that the adventure story doesn’t seem like such an adventure to most people – this game puts you into the mind of a young woman with pretty severe social anxiety on a mission to make herself something to eat.

For a lot of people, this is going to seem like a very odd concept for a video game, but as someone who has dealt with moderate to severe social anxiety, I get this game. I get it more than I like to admit. The whole idea of needing to do something, but not being able to cope with even the possibility of it leading to human interaction is something I’ve personally experienced.

However, I honestly believe that the people who could most benefit from playing this game are people who know and maybe even love someone who deals with social anxiety, but don’t really understand what that means.  When you have to make all the tiny decisions for Samantha on her quest to just have some oatmeal, and you see how she analyzes the decisions you make, you just might start to get it.

There are multiple fail conditions, but only a single path to success. You may need to play through multiple times if you want to have actually “beaten” the game, but I feel like this is so much more about the process than the win condition.

The Average Everyday Adventures of Samantha Browne is not a happy game, and you aren’t likely to feel good about much of anything after you’ve played it. It is, however, a very illuminating snapshot of what it’s like to live with social anxiety, and I’d recommend that anyone who wants to understand that world a little better give it a play through or ten.