Breakup simulator video game may improve your relationships

In the world of video games, there are plenty of so-called dating simulators, aka "dating sims," in which players can craft a personality, meet potential partners and try to win them over. Thirsty Suitors is not that, and makes it clear what we've been missing in video games: the breakup simulator.

Despite a title that implies sexual shenanigans, Thirsty Suitors is a game about the emotional mess caused by relationships, as well as the power that can come from confronting our past mistakes. There are battles, but they are more bouts of barbed words than they are high-action sequences.

We, as the character of Jala, fling insults and harsh reminiscences of the past, all while ducking basketballs, skateboards or giant pieces of cake by attempting to push a controller button in rhythm. The real pain, however, comes from the game's words. "I kept trying to change myself for you," one ex tells our protagonist, "but now I realize you didn't know what you wanted." It stings as much as any of the game's exaggerated fight moves, one of which involves calling Mom for help to squish a former lover with a sandal. Such humor helps the emotional warfare go down a little easier.

Each confrontation ends in some form of reconciliation, as the game aims to show the importance of forming healthy relationships with those we have become close to. Thirsty Suitors early on spells out its goals: "Friendship and emotional maturity." It's unclear if Jala, our hero, has the strength for it, but each encounter with an ex — some relationships more strained and traumatic than the others — helps her better articulate her emotions, her failings and how she came to villainize former partners. Fault, in "Thirsty Suitors," is assigned equally.

Developed by Seattle-based Outerloop and published by Los Angeles studio Annapurna, Thirsty Suitors was released this month  for home computers and most consoles. I went in with trepidation. I feared it would be triggering, as I'm still in the midst of coming to terms with the dissolution of my last relationship.

Spending a dozen hours with a narrative-focused game reliving breakups didn't seem, to use an unfair video game term, fun. But what I found was something that felt rather comforting, its deep dives into multiple scorched-earth breakups showing the way miscommunication can lead to misunderstandings and unfair demonization. Even in a situation where reconciliation seems an impossibility, Thirsty Suitors places the emphasis on growing and healing through difficult conversations. 

Thirsty Suitors isn't an argument that all relationships must lead to friendships. After all, not every relationship can have the neat closure — or potential for a future — that Jala seeks.

"How do we get closure on our own?" asks Becky White, a licensed marriage and family therapist and the founder and director of Los Angeles-based Root to Rise Therapy. "Does it mean we have to expose ourselves to the person who hurt us? Or can we do it by writing a letter we don't give? Or a cord-cutting meditation visualization? There's ways to obtain closure without exposing yourself."

Perhaps by playing a game.