Wednesdays is a narrative adventure about trauma and memory set to release on iOS and Android next week
Overview & Key Takeaways
I’m going to open with a content warning here because this piece will discuss themes of child abuse. For a lot of us, games are an exit door. Something quick, something loud, something to fill the hour before sleep. But every so often, something shows up with no interest in letting you off the hook. Something that wants you present, not distracted. Wednesdays is that kind of adventure. ... [MORE]
- Narrative adventure follows Tim confronting resurfacing childhood memories
- Multiple perspectives gradually reveal the story’s emotional context
- Wednesdays releases free on iOS and Android on March 25th
I’m going to open with a content warning here because this piece will discuss themes of child abuse.
For a lot of us, games are an exit door. Something quick, something loud, something to fill the hour before sleep. But every so often, something shows up with no interest in letting you off the hook. Something that wants you present, not distracted. Wednesdays is that kind of adventure.
Tim is the character at the centre of it all – an adult whose memories of childhood sexual abuse start resurfacing after he revisits a game from his past called Orco Park. What starts as something resembling nostalgia quickly becomes something far heavier, pulling people around him into a reckoning with the past as well.
The experience doesn't tell the story from a single angle. Different chapters hand you a different perspective. Someone connected to Tim, their own recollections slowly colouring in what you didn't previously know. It's a gradual piecing together, which is exactly how traumatic memories tend to actually surface.
Worth flagging for anyone hesitant about the subject matter – Wednesdays doesn't show abuse on screen. It stays in the aftermath. The silence people keep, the confusion that lingers, the slow work of understanding something that was long left unexamined.
The art pulls in two different directions, and that's clearly intentional. Tim's memories come through in a soft, hand-drawn comic style. Orco Park, by contrast, is rendered in bright, chunky pixel art. The visual jump between the two styles does a bit of storytelling on its own, nudging at the distance between how we tend to romanticise childhood and what it sometimes actually contained.
Wednesdays drops free on iOS and Android on March 25th. There's an in-app purchase available too, if you want to dig into some behind-the-scenes material.
If games that lead with story are your thing, our list of the best narrative adventures on mobile is worth checking out.
