Day in My Life: Sober Edition is a personal, narrative-driven game about addiction, recovery, and the quiet act of choosing yourself over and over again. When I started designing it, I knew I didn’t want to make something that was just fun — I wanted it to have purpose. I wanted it to come from a real place.
 

Mental health has always been close to me, and growing up in a home affected by addiction shaped how I understand people and pain. Addiction doesn’t only impact the person struggling; it ripples outward into families, partners, children — the para-alcoholics who carry their own invisible wounds. According to a 2023 study, 1 in 4 children in the U.S. have a parent with a substance use disorder. It's heartbreakingly common, yet rarely spoken about.
 

Watching recovery up close taught me that it isn’t linear. There’s no checklist, no perfect arc. It’s personal, messy, and tightly intertwined with mental health. This game is dedicated to my dad — the smartest person I knew, and the reason I fell in love with tech. His struggle taught me empathy, resilience, and forgiveness, lessons that continue to shape who I am.
 

That lived experience is why this game exists. It’s not meant to mock recovery — it’s my way of honoring how hard it really is, the kind of hard most people never see. Humor has always been one of my coping mechanisms, so I wanted the game to hold that same energy. Recovery can be painful and overwhelming, but it can also be awkward, funny, and deeply human. The “mean girls” who hurl word-attacks aren’t just jokes — they’re the loud, petty voices that echo in your head when you’re trying to heal. Making them exaggerated felt honest, because intrusive thoughts can be cruel, dramatic, and a little ridiculous once you step back.
 

Because the story deals with heavy themes, I wanted the gameplay to balance symbolism with meaning. Each boss represents an internal conflict. The first — the Alcohol Monster — is the player’s own reflection morphing into a threat, forcing a literal confrontation with the self. Every mechanic is intentional, reinforcing one truth: recovery is a cycle of meeting yourself again and deciding not to give up.
 

At its core, Day in My Life: Sober Edition treats recovery not as punishment, but as a choice. Through humor, metaphor, and emotional honesty, it shows that healing doesn’t follow a script — and that’s exactly why it’s worth fighting for.

— Esha