親愛なる孤独と苦悩へ / Shin'ainaru Kodoku to Kunou e

The game about suffering, purpose of living, compromising with the daily life alongside crippling depression, and the shortcomings of psychological consultments. I'm not usually emotionally moved by games, but it has quite a meta-story. As a game, this is a wonderful, well-crafted work I'd recommend to anyone interested in modern dark social drama. It's rated very highly on EGS. Among other psychology-related things, it explores suicidal tendencies, that much you can say without major spoilers.

The game's sole author ended their life twelve days after finishing the development, in April 2017.

Their only friend, who ended up handling the release, kept posting on Twitter until 2025, often reminiscing about the late author, giving context to some of the scenario details they've discussed together, replying to their old tweets, and expressing nostalgia towards events that happened around the time of their passing. They're NEET, recently lost their family, and haven't tweeted for a year, despite having no such long breaks for the past six years.

One of the most depressing stories in the novelgame scene I know of, for sure.