But she said she felt a connection to the protagonist of Night in the Woods, Mae, a college dropout who returns to her hometown but struggles to reconnect with family and friends. Ms. Rodriguez’s first play-through of the game was extremely emotional, she said, because “I was able to experience the world through the eyes of someone like me, who felt helpless and aimless in life.” She added that she felt especially drawn to Mae’s use of sarcasm to deflect and bury her own problems.

While Ms. Rodriguez was already in treatment, she said, the game motivates her to be more honest and receptive with her therapist. She has since become an ambassador in a Take This program, in which she regularly discusses mental health on her social media channels and on the live-streaming platform Twitch.

Makers of mental health games said they had seen a similar reaction from other players. After the 2016 simulation role-playing game Stardew Valley — which does not punish players for not completing tasks and creates a slow-paced atmosphere where the objective is to take care of a run-down farm — was released, Eric Barone, the game’s creator, received hundreds of messages, he said. Players wrote to share their stories of how the game helped them cope with difficult periods in their lives.