Due to the game's relatively small size, all spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.
HUMAN! I sense DANGER!
Adventures with Anxiety is a 2019 short interactive story by Nicky Case based on their own personal experience with anxiety disorders. The story is about a person and their anxiety, which takes the form of a big red wolf.
However, the player doesn't take the role of the human; they play as the anxiety, which just thinks of itself as a guard dog, trying to warn their master of possible dangers. It can be played for free here
.
This story includes examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Every major character has a name, but they're only listed in the end credits.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Al has a crush on the main human character, but cannot work up the courage to even hang out as friends, and their own stressed-out anxiety animal, Shire the cat refuses to behave anyway.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The wolf is one of the human's anxiety.
- Art Shift: When discussing emotional scars with the human, the anxiety wolf suddenly gets an extremely anime-esque close-up while noting that scars are cool, before the human tells them to cut it out.
- Backhanded Apology: If you say sorry in the game's third chapter, be sure it's not this, or they'll stop listening to you.
- Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Most of the first chapter is spent causing stress over trivial things, like the contents of a sandwich or the possibility of getting trampled at a party. So when actual danger shows up, like alcohol and jumping off a building, it's tricky to convince the human that you're being serious.
- Bittersweet Ending: Your human learns that their friends were only using them, nearly die and potentially get injured from falling off a building, but you and your human survive and develop a better understanding towards each other.
- The Big Bad Wolf: From the human's perspective, the wolf is their biggest obstacle to happiness. In the credits, it's given the name "Beebee", as in "B.B. Wolf".
- Bond Creatures: Everyone has an animal personification of their inner self, in all cases it's that animalistic part of you that desires self-preservation. The human's (Hong) partner is a big wolf (Bee Bee). In the story's case they manifest as a person's anxieties and fears.
- Book Ends: The game begins and ends with the human and their wolf eating a white-bread sandwich on a stump.
- Both Sides Have a Point: As the human argues with their anxiety it turns out none of its counter-arguments are Improperly Paranoid and each objection is technically valid. This undermines the human's willpower and determination everytime.
- Brick Joke: If the player ends the first chapter by having the human curl up and cry, there will be a small marsh labeled "Lake Tears" when they return to that spot in the ending. Alternately, if the human destroys their phone, there will be a grave labeled "RIP phone".
- Character Development: The anxiety wolf goes through this, first seeing itself as a guard dog and ultimately deciding it's more of a battered shelter dog that sometimes screws up, but still genuinely cares about their human. The human, in turn, goes from treating the wolf as an enemy to accepting it and hoping to train it better.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Chapter 3 has none of the comedy that the whole remainder of the game has.
- Cope by Pretending: The red-haired person (Hunter) throws parties every week as a means of taking breaks from the stress of life and silencing that inner anxiety animal. However, it immediately becomes apparent that this isn't healthy coping, as their parties go wild fast and are raw escapism.
- Crying Wolf: Your role, both literally and figuratively.
- Darker and Edgier: Despite not being bloody, gory and cynical like some of Nicky Case's other games it manages to be this by portraying the human's descent towards alcoholism realistically and making it clear that it is unhealthy and dangerous.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The images are black and white, with the exception of red things that can transform into anxiety creatures, like the human's hoodie.
- The Dog Bites Back: While anxiety wolf succeeds in getting their companion to leave the first party it's a Pyrrhic Victory as their human throws them wrestling-style to the ground vowing to return to next weekend's party.
- Dog Walks You: When anxiety wolf has reduced their human's energy down to zero, they can directly control their actions into a fight or flight reaction.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Subverted. It is not until the human and the wolf encounter an actually life-threatening situation that they truly learn how to function together. As anxiety wolf explains he loves their human partner, and will try to compromise where possible, but their desire to never be harmed may cause them someday to regress back into a panicky mess again. Both accept that's part of living from one day to the next.
- Elephant in the Living Room: Referenced in the form of Hunter's anxiety animal, Gramm.
- Fear Is Normal: The main moral of the game. You play as a person's anxiety, personified as a wolf named Beebee, who is responsible for their anxious thoughts. Beebee believes themself to be helping Hong, keeping them safe, but their attempts are less than helpful, even distressing. Despite the intense drawbacks and often irrationality of anxiety, it is shown that ignoring all your feelings can be just as bad for you. In the end, Hong makes peace with their anxiety, not giving in to their irrational fears, but not shutting out all their feelings.
- Fighting a Shadow: A human trying to fight back against their anxiety animal is futile; their animal partner will use every trick in the book to keep them safe and comply with their desires, if need be. Only alcohol consumption can temporarily paralyze the Bond Creatures, but at a terrible cost. It's a lose-lose situation, as the inebriated person will either override their basic survival instincts putting their life at risk, or turn to drink as a coping mechanism to keep their overbearing partner, and all other emotions, at bay. The solution is not to fight. Only when both accept they are part of each other can they hope to live in a semblance of harmony.
- Guardian Entity: How anxiety animals see themselves as they watch over their humans. To the humans they reduce to nervous wrecks though, they are often Unwanted Assistance.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: The color red is reserved exclusively for anxiety animals and the real objects associated with them, and the red-haired person has, well...
- Humble Pie: If you keep your human from jumping off the building, they'll lock the person who dared them to do it on the roof.
- Iconic Item: Your human has a red hoodie with animal ears, which the anxiety wolf manifests from. Another character, Al, wears a red bow which manifests as their own anxiety cat, Shire. Hunter's dyed red hair turns out to be tied to their own repressed anxiety animal, an elephant.
- Ignored Epiphany: The human can't figure out by the story's ending why Al would suddenly panic and run away because of their own anxiety cat, even after they reconciled with their own anxiety wolf.
- Invisible to Normals: When Hong is talking with their wolf, other people see the latter as their red hoodie, though Hunter is familiar with "dealing with your inner animal". Similarly, when approached by Al and their anxiety cat, Shire, Hong and Beebee don't quite know what their deal was.
- Just Ignore It: Hong attempts this at the party with a dose of positive reinforcement but the anxiety wolf wears them down anyway.
- Medium Awareness: While having an open discussion with their human in the ending, the anxiety wolf remarks that they've only really had to deal with three types of fear, and that learning good coping mechanisms is going to be a lot harder than just pressing buttons in a game.
- Mental World: The human has one where they talk to their anxiety wolf, since it doesn't exist in reality. Notably, the zone is black at first, but becomes white when they decide to sort things out.
- Multiple Endings: Depending on whether or not you can successfully stop your human from injuring themselves in a risky dare, the final scene will either be just like the first, or the human and wolf will be bandaged up from their injuries.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The key to successfully avoiding your human jumping off of a building is to admit that you've caused harm by making big deals out of perceived dangers, rather than pointing out how dangerous the upcoming thing is.
- Nervous Wreck: All of the anxiety animals seem to be a mix of this and Properly Paranoid, for better or for worse.
- No Antagonist: The human and wolf eventually decide that their "one of us must win" mentality is stupid, and break their health bars before having a frank discussion. Even the red-haired person, while the instigator of actual danger, is just a person with bad ways to cope with their own stress.
- Obliviously Evil: Beebee never intended to harm their human, only wanting to be a good guard wolf capable of protecting them. But they're not perfect, they're a "battered shelter dog." Beebee's desire to protect them from all harm has blinded them to the harm they cause Hong through their overprotective tendencies.
- People Puppets: Winning an argument with the human allows the wolf to directly choose their next course of action between "Fight" and "Flight", such as whether to smash a phone showing distressing news or to curl up and cry.
- Primal Fear: Anxiety makes appeals to emotion that invoke the human's three main types of fear: the fear of being physically harmed, the fear of being unloved, and the fear of being a bad person.
- Red Riding Hood Replica: The main characters are a young person in a red hoodie and the embodiment of their anxiety, which takes the form of a wolf.
- Reverse Psychology: This backfires horribly for the anxiety wolf if they tell their human they never cared about their welfare (which the human wholeheartedly believes in that moment) in an attempt to get them to see reason.
- Rule of Three: Most choices in the game have three options, which are connected to three base fears — fear of being hurt, fear of loneliness, and fear of being a bad person. Lampshaded during the epilogue, with the human and wolf both commenting on this.
- Rule of Symbolism: In the beginning we see the human doesn't wear a red hooded jacket at all, it's their anxiety animal and as the wolf has complete control of them, its wrapped tightly around them. During the course of the story as they rebel against their partner's wishes, the wolf's grip on them slips. At the party, the jacket's loosely tied around their waist.
- Shout-Out:
- Hong's name means "red" in Chinese, has a wolf as their anxiety animal and wears it as a red hoodie, essentially making them Little Red Riding Hood.
- If you warn your human that they're just using people on hookup apps, anxiety wolf sings a song to the tune of the Pokémon anime theme song.
- The human looks very similar to the character Frisk, and the message after the credits includes the phrase "Stay determined.".
- Horrified their human isn't mixing well at the party without their 'guidance', anxiety wolf pulls a pose straight out "The Scream".
- To stop their human consuming a drink concoction, wolf unleashes their special attack crying out "Hadouken!"
- Shrinking Violet: The human (Hong) starts off as one of these in the beginning. Al and their anxiety cat Shire are also much the same, avoiding socializing with others.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A subtly ironic and somewhat optimistic variant where the consequences of jumping off the building aren't quite as horrifying as the visions you can give your human with your special attack, but they are more realistic and detailed.
- Sympathy for the Devil: The last we see of the red-headed person is them sleeping uneasily on their couch as their anxiety animal, the massive elephant (Gramm) they've let it grow to become, sadly watches over them.
- This Is My Human: How the anxiety wolf feels about their human, even having the option to pet them if they so choose. The sentiment is shared among all the clingy anxiety animals.
- Toxic Friend Influence: The red-haired party host becomes this when they encourage the protagonist to drink and take risks.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: No one at the party bats an eyelid at the human arguing with themself. Everyone's aware they're arguing with their inner-animal. It's one of the reasons why many turn up to Hunter's parties.
- Versus Character Splash: Whenever the wolf and the human talk, it's presented this way, followed by you pointing out fears or the human drinking as "attacks" that drain their opponent's health. They eventually decide this way of seeing things is stupid and smash their own health bars before having a chat.
- Wham Line: Two, both said by the red-haired person. The first is when they offer your human alcohol to silence you, and the second is when they dare your human to jump off a building.
- You Are Not Alone: At the end of the good ending we see another person (named Al in the credits) who is carrying around their own anxiety animal named "Shire". Also, at the end of the credits there is the phrase itself, and a message telling us that there are many others who suffer from anxiety disorder, and within them many are able to find and share help with others. Bonus points for creator Nicky Case crediting
their own anxiety wolf, and musician Monplaisir their anxiety pigeon.
