I completely agree with your thoughts on games regarding mental health, and you bring up a really good point. Ensuring that a game isn't just becoming a new kind of addiction is a really important aspect of game development that I think we all should keep in mind. And keeping track of whether or not the intention of the games we are making are consistent with what we value in life (self-expression, honesty, empathy, and basically all of the things we would like to see more of in the world) is fundamental to ensuring that our games contribute to a players experience that isn't predatory and destructive.
That's honestly been one of my deepest concerns with this whole game jam...I'm a bit worried that people may try to use "mental health" as a selling point for their games and, instead of genuinely creating something that can facilitate inner growth within the player, just creates more "noise" within them that can distract the player long enough to make them think it's "helping" them, when in actuality it's just keeping them dependant on an external stimulus, which will completely deteriorate the moment the player goes back to their regular habitual mode of operation. In this way, instead of being "therapeutic" for people, it will just becomes a new platform for psychological exploitation. It would be using the same tricks that marketeers, politicians (and basically every other form of con-artist) use to make people feel more comfortable giving them money for the promise of an unachievable service. And when I see an organization come along with a lot of money and "professionals" and hear them saying a lot of vaguely "scientifically" reassuring things, but provide no actual demonstrations or examples of what they're talking about...I gotta be honest...it makes me a little nervous.
Hopefully my worries are unfounded...but I've seen a lot of organizations built around some really "nice" ideas later turn into fragmented monsters that only vaguely harbor their original intention.
Anyway, I really appreciate your thoughtful comment. And you don't need to worry about posting walls of text (you've probably noticed, that's kind of my thing, haha). And you know what, at this point, I'm kind of thinking Aether Fly may be exactly the game that would be "therapeutic" for ME to work on right now. So, I think that's the game I'm gonna finish first. Thanks for your insightful feedback, as always! Really glad we crossed paths on here, hoping in the future we can collaborate on a project. :)