Depression Quest is an entirely text-based Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game in which you play as You. Well, okay, perhaps not the you You, but someone relatable. You might not have a job that you hate (this You does). You might not have a girlfriend you love, but who gives you intense anxiety (this You does). You might not be accustomed to imagining …
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Depression Quest is an entirely text-based Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game in which you play as You. Well, okay, perhaps not the you You, but someone relatable. You might not have a job that you hate (this You does). You might not have a girlfriend you love, but who gives you intense anxiety (this You does). You might not be accustomed to imagining life without the comfort and convenience of your prehensile tail (this You does not have such a body part, or at least it's not mentioned anywhere in the text). You might not suffer from severe depression. Or you might, I don't know. Either way, this game was intended for every you to play, in the hopes that those suffering from this condition might be able to take some measure of support from it and that those who aren't suffering from it might better understand just how thoroughly depression can undermine someone's entire life.
The presentation is simple enough; you are shown a series of days in the life of You, and each day you are given a set of actions to choose from. These range from the healthy (Ignore your bad mood and go out on the town with friends) to the blatantly self-destructive (Stay home and eat Fritos and wish you had more cats), and each choice has repercussions that determine how the story progresses. If you could simply always choose the healthy option, why, you'd probably wind up feeling great and be very successful... but that's not how depression works. Depression saps motivation, drains energy, limits a person, and depending on how depressed you are, your options will be more and more limited, offering you only the Fritos-related story paths. You'll see the healthy, socially-active options, you'll know they're there, but they'll be crossed out - there's no way you could bring yourself to do that. Instead, you get to choose from the remaining options, the leftovers, the coward's-way-outs and the awkward compromises and the lame, humiliating excuses. When it's available, pushing yourself will help you crawl out of your pit, but sometimes it's just not an option.
This is a game with some very clear messages about the realities of depression, some of which you may disagree with. Not everyone believes that pharmaceutical options, psych meds, can really help a person. In my experience, it depends on the person, but they can work miracles. Not everyone believes that therapy is a worthwhile expenditure of time. I know that some therapists aren't fit for the job and do more harm than good, but that doesn't mean there aren't caring, intelligent people out there who earnestly want to help. And not everyone believes that their friends care for them, that they can be trusted; sometimes it feels as though the whole world is judging and laughing at you behind your back. But that's not the case, and without that support network of friends and loved ones, the world is a very dark place. I think the messages included here are all beautiful, earnest ones, and I think it's incredibly generous of them to offer the game free-of-charge on Steam; I got more enjoyment out of DQ than I have out of anything in a long while.
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