Open Discussion about Depression Quest as a Game (forget the author attached to it please)

[MysticSlayer]

I see how you took that as a petty jab at her but I am somebody who does believe in due process and proof. Given previous evens with how she has acted without proving to anybody that anything has actually happened I therefore inferred that she game the game wholly as an "artsy cash grab." Now I might be incorrect in the inference but I stand by it though the sheer use of logic

So you're calling a free game that let's people pay what they want and then donates part of that pay to charity as an "artsy cash grab"? Where's the logic in that?

 

[Story]

Yay an excuse to post this video.
Outside of this, I actually haven't played Depression Quest. Honestly I'm personally more interested in Actual Sunlight than Depression Quest if I had to choose between the two, since that one seems more pessimistic.

 

[Mikeybb]

I played it based on the link in the RPS article back when it was mentioned.

I thought "I've never really played one of these primarily text based things since my old spectrum. lets give it a go."

It was a multiple choice text game.
I was immediately reminded of a choose your own adventure book but without the arbitrary game overs and dice component.
It wasn't particularly inventive in mechanics or implementation, though I was truly impressed with the element of choices being removed based on your mental state.
I felt it worked primarily as a method for getting across the central message of the game rather than a gameplay mechanic and of all the aspects of this game that I remember, this is the one that stays with me.
The writing was passable, nothing wowed me or jarred.
The situations were believable enough.
...but save that single aspect mentioned above, nothing stood out as excellent.

That is primarily what I took away from this.

It was a subjective presentation on depression that was far more effective as a message than it was as a game.

If I were to score it as a game, it would be scored low.

Reviewed as an awareness campaign for depression it would score higher.

I ended up feeling this would have worked better as a flash component of a depression awareness website than an actual game release.
It would have potentially reached more people who would have benefited from it through that medium.

 

[Story]

Yay an excuse to post this video.


Outside of this, I actually haven't played Depression Quest. Honestly I'm personally more interested in Actual Sunlight than Depression Quest if I had to choose between the two, since that one seems more pessimistic.

Actual sunlight was a little jarring to play and a difficult sit but i actually was quite compelled by it's 16 bit interactive narrative style. I wouldn't re-play it but i wouldn't call it "Shit" either. It had a lot more substance to it and, you know, a graphical interface. Like I've said "Depression Quest" (which, c'mon, is a really clumsy and baiting title) lives and dies like all text based games on it's narrative content and writing flare which i don't feel is up to the job.

Thanks for the run down. The gameplay and genre choice is also another reason why I'm more drawn to Actual Sunlight. Last question is how long is it?
I might just go "gun-ho" and play both over the weekend just for the heck of it.

 

[Story]

[
Actual sunlight was a little jarring to play and a difficult sit but i actually was quite compelled by it's 16 bit interactive narrative style. I wouldn't re-play it but i wouldn't call it "Shit" either. It had a lot more substance to it and, you know, a graphical interface. Like I've said "Depression Quest" (which, c'mon, is a really clumsy and baiting title) lives and dies like all text based games on it's narrative content and writing flare which i don't feel is up to the job.

Thanks for the run down. The gameplay and genre choice is also another reason why I'm more drawn to Actual Sunlight. Last question is how long is it?
I might just go "gun-ho" and play both over the weekend just for the heck of it.

I can't really recommend either of them that highly, honestly they didn't really leave that much of an impact as i play so many games, but i remember Actual Sunlight now being horrible whilst i tried and failed to see any appeal in Depression Quest.

You should also note Actual Sunlight is an RPG maker game so don't expect the world. Not to be picky but both games are pretty unimpressive in their technical aspects; they both use some of the most basic game making tools out there. Whilst i think "Amateurish" is a bit back-handed for Actual Sunlight (it's not a BAD rpg maker game, certainly in the top 50% I've played) it's pretty accurate for Depression Quest.

Length wise? It's pretty short with a linear narrative so an hour or two if that. Not sure of exact playtime.

Cool thanks for taking the time out to explain your experiences with both. Just bought Actual Sunlight and I might as well try Depression Quest since it is free and I got nothing much to lose expect a few hours of my time. At worst I suppose it would be like reading a bad book.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

she didn't advertise it as "her story" of depression (if she ever really had it)

The worst, and I do mean THE WORST (!!!) thing you can say to someone with depression is that they're not depressed. The fastest way to cause a depressed person to withdraw and start going into the downward spiral is to deny how they're feeling, thus "proving" to them that they're flawed at some other, unknowable level that they'll never find.

You don't know how far down the rabbit hole someone with depression is, so please think twice about minimizing their struggles. That kind of talk could very well push them right off the cliff.

I see how you took that as a petty jab at her

1. You made a comment doubting that Zoë has depression (which she said she did way back before any of the shit started).

2. I said that your comment is the worst thing anybody could to say to anyone who has depression.

Where did I say that you took a petty jab at her? I didn't - you read that into my comment. I called out your remark as something that should never be directed to someone who has depression, be it Zoë or anyone else. It doesn't mean you HAVE to believe that they have it, but it SHOULD mean that you don't voice the worst possible inference about their mental health, because they might, in fact, be telling the truth, regardless of how they handle themselves in other matters.

Regarding the assertion in the OP about the game dismissing the problems as selfish self-loathing, isn't the point that you, as the protagonist, see yourself that way exactly because you have depression?

This quote above is a big reason WHY one should never tell someone with depression that they don't have it. It's easier to combat depression if you can recognize when your thoughts and words are being twisted by a chemical imbalance, but for that to happen, you HAVE to be able to recognize depression as a chemical imbalance and not the result of personal shortcomings. "Oh, you're not depressed" is the most stigmatizing comment in that regard. It changes a depressed person's internal dialog from "why do I feel so down" into "I'm an awful, selfish person for being so down." There's a BIG difference between the two.

(FYI, Baffle, I'm saying that your impression is absolutely correct - you latched on to one of the primary reasons why some people with depression don't seek treatment. They've been led to believe that THEY are the problem, not some unseen illness.)

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Now I don't want to derail this thread, but I also can't stay quiet when I see things being said that are potentially life-threatening to someone in a dangerous emotional state. It doesn't take much either: the tiniest and most seemingly insignificant comment can trigger an internal avalanche in mere seconds.

 

[Qvar]

That would mean it only 'worked' for people with depression, who could understand the limited choices. Lets not compare it to Mario, whose only choice is to jump or not to jump, to eat the mushroom or not, etc. But people with depression don't need to be told what depression is like, so I assume the intended audience is people without depression - maybe people who spend lots of time with those who have depression and need to get a perception of the world.

Actually... We don't need to be told how it is in the sense that we already know. But it helps a great deal seeing how there is people out there feeling the same way, including many comments in this thread.

I played it recently. It seemed to mirror my own experience of what I would call depression fairly closely (I never actually got a professional assessment of it, but I don't know what else it would be). In fact it was somewhat depressing to find the main character getting along with it far better than I had, what with having friends to prod him into going to therapy and somehow maintaining a loving supportive relationship, whereas nobody seemed to even notice when I was so despondent I would just lie on the floor of my room for hours at a time, unable to bring myself to so much as try and do something that might make me feel better.

Same here. I've read about other people stories a bit, as of lately, and it surprises me that despite the self-loathing, the absolute lack of drive... There's people who manage to have lasting love relationships and lots of friends who care for them. I guess that only applies for girls, just like the one who developed this game. For me, if I dissapeared a whole week nobody except my family would notice. I know because I've been on vacation without telling anybody, nobody noticed my absence and when I got back I barely had any message.
The only relationship I've had in years has been with an also depressed girl. We broke after a handful months and I'm still in love. As if I needed any more excuses.

 

[FlameBoyBen]

Its an effective PowerPoint presentation

 

[NeutralDrow]

I played it some months ago. I had to stop playing halfway through to break down crying.

It hurt to play. It hurt being immersed, because it was too easy to be so. Took me an hour to finish, because some of the decisions just paralyzed me. A lot of the time, I "knew" intellectually what might help, but I couldn't do it. Somehow, I managed to finish in relatively good shape, but I don't know what to do now.

I guess I have to respond about the game's "mechanics" or some crap, too...fuck that. I play visual novels, text and music alone are enough for me.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I got in trouble for this recently so I'll try and be more gentle this time.

Depression isn't rational.

It's the hardest bridge to cross when you're there because you're kind of conditioned to rely on your perception of reality, but having depression means almost by definition that your perception of reality is completely wrong. You're not responding proportionately to real things, and if you were then that's not really depression.. everyone feels bad when things are genuinely bad, when a friend or relative dies it's okay to hit rock bottom over that, but depression is when you just hit rock bottom all the time, constantly convinced that your life is some torturous hell when actually the things which are bothering you are usually things most people would take a minute or two to process.

It's not selfish, because selfishness implies a choice, but it looks pretty selfish from the outside because it is incomprehensible. I mean, take this whole idea that it's completely unrealistic that other people are trying to help you. Is it? If you're depressed and reading this, ask yourself seriously - would you even notice if other people tried to help you? If someone did something which they thought was going out of their way to make you happy, would it even register, or would it simply be lost against the background of simply not being enough? Again, it's not rational to just assume that noone else is trying, in fact it is.. I dread to say it.. a little selfish. Why would you turn it back onto other people like that, why not just assume they're doing their best but that maybe their best is just never going to be good enough.

It's not simple, and that alone makes me skeptical that it will ever "work" in a game, indeed I haven't played this game, but at the same time I think we're far too easy to interpret "treating depression like the disease it is" as "slander". Depression isn't you. Don't internalize it. Don't defend the thing that makes your life miserable. Learn to hate and ignore it as much as you possibly can.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I'm deciding not to address the layout of the actual game because I know I don't possess the gift of writing.

However, when I played it (as someone who's been diagnosed with double depression in the past and who very well might have a mental imperfection at the moment - I haven't had the guts to call a doctor yet), as I selected every decision and was forced to make other decisions, I couldn't help but feel that because my scenario is different from the "you" in the game, I felt a little alienated but maybe that's just me.

Also (and this might be the whatever upstairs happening) but I think the message would be skewed if someone who didn't have depression played this because as previously stated, depression is personal and it varies from person to person and this game doesn't really do much generalizing - for instance, my mom would kill me if I spent my days off in bed with zero ability or motivation to do anything productive with my life. Hell, I can't even call a doctor but that's just "something I'm doing wrong"

SOOOOOOOOO I can't judge anyone else's feelings and I think the idea is good, just the execution could've been better and it was too specific to a certain person's view, but I don't blame anyone for that. That's just how it works; it's hard to get a grip on for all parties involved

 

[NateA42]

It's not simple, and that alone makes me skeptical that it will ever "work" in a game, indeed I haven't played this game, but at the same time I think we're far too easy to interpret "treating depression like the disease it is" as "slander". Depression isn't you. Don't internalize it. Don't defend the thing that makes your life miserable. Learn to hate and ignore it as much as you possibly can.

You mistook what I meant by calling it slander. My mindset wasn't "omg depression is my favorite mental illness I have to defend it to the death." I meant the game portrayed it as a choice to feel that way and not seek help. I'm having trouble wording it but how could you seriously think I was defending it as something awesome?
Also I don't see why you could have gotten in trouble so calling it being irrational, it's a face. Like when you get so angry that you tell someone that's you're going to kill them.

Sorry but I'm having trouble following the implication there.
The idea of the game (as I took it) is that you do not play the main character as in you do not play "Mario" or "Walker" but you instead play *you.* How the game displays it's ideas is you are you fuck all else.

That would mean it only 'worked' for people with depression, who could understand the limited choices. Lets not compare it to Mario, whose only choice is to jump or not to jump, to eat the mushroom or not, etc. But people with depression don't need to be told what depression is like, so I assume the intended audience is people without depression - maybe people who spend lots of time with those who have depression and need to get a perception of the world.

That's a fair point, I was just trying to hit home the "this is a simulator this is how you react because I have already planned out things for you" concept I was trying to get across.

I see how you took that as a petty jab at her but I am somebody who does believe in due process and proof. Given previous evens with how she has acted without proving to anybody that anything has actually happened I therefore inferred that she game the game wholly as an "artsy cash grab." Now I might be incorrect in the inference but I stand by it though the sheer use of logic

So you're calling a free game that let's people pay what they want and then donates part of that pay to charity as an "artsy cash grab"? Where's the logic in that?

So she can get her career off the ground and make money off of patreon. But again, that is neither here nor there.

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It's nice hearing from what other people think about the game itself, I guess I was sheltered with disliking due to the Steam reviews (which mimic my thoughts) and my friends how felt the same way I did about it.