How Astro Bot helped me through the worst week of my life

I wrote most of what you’re (hopefully) about to read almost a year ago, right in the middle of trying to make it through one of the worst things that has ever happened to me and my family. I’ve gone back to it, tweaked it, added to it, but ultimately never considered it something I would ever share with anyone else.

At the time, it was just a way to get my feelings out. I formed a connection with a game in a way I didn’t know was possible. Loving games and writing as much as I do, I wanted to get those feelings out onto virtual paper, even if no one ever read about them other than me.

A lot has changed since then, and I’ve thought about what you’re about to read a lot. I’ve realised just how many people go through what me, my wife, and my son went through every single day. I’ve realised that so many of those who go through it feel like they can’t, or maybe even shouldn’t talk about it. I realised that a lot of people who go through it don’t find their Astro Bot. That last one will make a lot more sense in about five minutes.

I’ve also decided that I want to start this newsletter, and with what I wrote last year still playing on my mind, and wanting to share what I went through in the hope it might help others, this feels like the perfect place to start. I’m going to try and post stuff here pretty regularly, but most of it will be a lot less depressing, promise.

Trigger warning: Sensitive topics, including miscarriage, are discussed throughout the rest of this article.

I’ve logged over 100 hours in Astro’s Playroom. Okay, that’s technically not true. The Astro’s Playroom counter on my PS5 is sitting on roughly 100 hours, but only about ten of them are mine. My son contributed the other 90 to round our combined total up to an even 100.

Needless to say, when a full blown Astro Bot game was revealed, he was about as excited as I was to play it, and I was pretty damn excited. We would go back and check the countdown room in Playroom every single day. That was until the final day when, before we had the chance to check in, I received one of the worst phone calls of my life.

My wife had left for the hospital about an hour earlier for a routine scan. We were having another baby, but since my son was off school, I needed to stay home and look after him while my wife went for the scan alone. When I saw she was calling me, my heart sank, and I know it sounds cliché, but I could feel something was wrong.

We had lost the baby. The next 24 hours are still a bit of a blur. Finding someone to look after our son before I rushed off to the hospital. Being told our options. Going home while the world carried on around us. Figuring out how to explain to a four year old what was happening to the brother or sister they had been helping us prepare for.

Then Astro Bot arrived. After all of that excitement, months counting down to its arrival, when release day arrived, I had forgotten it existed. The second my son saw it, his mood lifted. The game he’d been waiting months for, and a huge expansion on the best game he had ever played, was finally here. He was four, so while he might have been upset about everything else going on, his limited understanding of the situation meant a video game was enough to distract him.

It wasn’t as simple as that for me.  I didn’t anticipate Astro Bot, or any video game for that matter, helping me at all. But I was wrong. I played Astro Bot that night, and while it didn’t make me forget what was going on, it made me feel something other than complete heartbreak at a time when I was otherwise incapable of feeling anything else. I’d play it every night, once everyone else was asleep, and it was the escape I needed while we were stuck in the worst limbo imaginable.

We were in limbo because our miscarriage wasn’t straightforward, if that’s ever a word that can be used to describe such a thing. Our baby needed to be delivered, which effectively meant booking an appointment for the worst day of your life. My incredible wife going through all of the stress and pain of having a baby without the reward of a baby to raise at the end of it.

It was the painful wait for the worst day of our lives when Astro Bot really did some heavy lifting. When I didn’t have my son to take to school or fuss over, or my wife to take care of, all that was left was to endlessly think about that day and all of the pain that would come with it. Astro Bot helped me escape that,  just for a little while, each day.

There's an argument to be made that any game could have helped me in the way that Astro Bot did. If you've played Astro Bot, though, you'll know it's not that simple. The joy, the details, the nostalgia. Even if it hadn't come along at a time when I needed it most, it would have been my Game of the Year. With that additional meaning attached, it will forever be one of my favourite games of all time.

I don’t know if anyone at Team Asobi will ever read this, but if they do, I hope they know that their silly little game helped one person in ways that I can’t imagine they ever considered. I can’t thank them enough for unknowingly being there for me when I needed it more than ever.

More importantly, if anyone reading this has gone through a similar situation, I hope this helps, and I hope you managed to find your Astro Bot. Something unexpected that helped you when you needed it most, even if it was just something to distract you from real life when it was kicking you while you were down.

Thanks for reading. I’ll try to make the next one a little more upbeat.

Subscribing to Memory Card Unlocked is free, and you can do so via the sign-up box at the bottom of this page.

However, if you like what you see and want to contribute to making the site bigger and better, you can make a donation via Memory Card Unlocked's Ko-fi page.