The removal of unwelcome thoughts is key. In fact, if a game leaves room for recollection of better times, it may become unbearable. "Cruelly, a lot of the games I'm most fond of - hardcore sims like Microsoft Flight Sim and Silent Hunter 3 - are perfect for introspection." sighs Isolated in the Isle of Man. "When everything is right with the world, having the space to daydream within a game is a wonderful thing. When life has turned to shit, it's fatal."
Not that all post-breakup gaming favorites share everything with Planescape. There's the response which was memorably immortalized in British sitcom Spaced, where a jilted lover spends hours playing Tomb Raider. Not to actually get through the game - he just likes repeatedly drowning Lara Croft. We're talking about bloody, dirty release.
"I'm a simple fellow," claims Isolated. "I find sparkly slaughter and breakneck speed cure a multitude of ills. My comfort shooter is the original Unreal Tournament. A manic hour bouncing between the towers on Morpheus or goop-gunning for England on Deck16 usually banishes most bad thoughts."
"Playing [Command & Conquer] as China, on an easy setting, and just walling up your base, and building eight nuclear missiles, and unleashing them on the enemy all at once is the only catharsis you find," agrees Nihilistic. Keep eyes open for a sales blip around Valentines for Introversion's nuclear holocaust wargame, DEFCON.
Where next for breakup gaming? Well, this initial exploration into matters of the heart and the hard drive actually lead to elements which implies there's an article to be written about pre-breakup and general relationship trauma gaming too. "I started obsessing over someone quite recently," explains Guilty in Guildford. "I'm in quite a long-term relationship, so this is bad. So I started playing Zelda hard, very hard, so as to A) try and forget, and B) withdraw myself a little bit from [my] proper girlfriend. That way, she'd assume I was being distracted and distant because I'd been up all night playing Zelda. And not, say, because I was a bad, bad man."
Also, don't underestimate the effect of advances in gaming technology on the breakup game. Take Alienated in Auckland, whose post-split choice was Siberian Strike on his mobile. "Not because I had a hankering to shoot down some Russians," weeps Alienated, "but so that if she called to apologize profusely and beg me to come back, I'd have the phone right there."
But the primary attribute that makes Planescape: Torment a breakup classic on par with Songs Of Love And Hate and the nearest bottle of Chianti wasn't actually hit upon by any of my correspondents. Fundamentally, as long as it is, as distracting as it is, as all-consuming as it is, it ends. You complete it, look up at the sun and realize you have to do something else. The duvet-terrain description of Depressed in Dover's friend rings true. It gives you a place to lie, heal and lick your wounds; but after mourning, new morning. Get on with it, soldier. She wasn't worth your time anyway.
So for God's sake, don't get into any MMOG game post-split. We could never see you again.
Kieron Gillen has been writing about videogames for far too long now. His rock and roll dream is to form an Electro-band with Miss Kittin and SHODAN pairing up on vocals.
