Despite recent advances in our culture to discuss and normalize it, mental disorders remain stigmatized and marginalized in large parts of society. Those struggling with mental health issues often find it difficult to come forward and admit that they need help, or even acknowledging to themselves that something is amiss. Given recent events in the news as well as some personal developments, I’ve taken an interest in learning more about mental health, the effects of mental disorders, and what can be done to improve our collective understanding and response to these issues. As part of my learning I finally fired up a game that’s been sitting in my Steam library for what feels like years; the much debated Twine darling, Depression Quest.

The game, developed by a three person team consisting of Zoë Quinn, Patrick Lindsey, and Isaac Schankler, is a work of interactive fiction that places the player in the role of someone who is suffering from depression. Depression Quest uses a minimalist, web browser-like interface that is almost entirely text based. There are no animations nor environments to explore. The only things accompanying the prose are some music to set the tone and nonspecific pictures. The game establishes an earnest mood with the opening screen stating the developers’ intent:

The goal of this game is twofold: firstly, we want to illustrate as clearly as possible what depression is like, so that it may be better understood by people without depression. Hopefully this can be something to spread awareness and fight against the social stigma and misunderstandings that depression sufferers face. Secondly, our hope is that in presenting as real a simulation of depression as possible, other sufferers will come to know that they aren't alone, and hopefully derive some measure of comfort from that.

It’s certainly a noble goal, and one that admittedly got me liking the game from the start. The game also makes it clear that since everyone’s experience with life and depression are different, it only attempts to provide a sample representation of the disorder. That being said, I enjoyed how broadly the game was written. The game makes a few assumptions of the player character, namely that they aren’t a straight female, likely middle class, in their 20s, and lives in a first world country. But aside from that, details are left sparse to ensure relatability. The prose itself is incredibly well-written, focusing mainly on the character’s mind-state. Further to that, the character’s interactions with their closest friends and family provided just enough to endear them to me without them feeling overly detailed. The combination of these elements allowed to reflect on my own connections with others. For instance, the interactions with the player’s brother, Malcolm, had me thinking the relationship I have with my own sibling, and while my circumstances don’t exactly match up with the game, the relationship felt authentic to my experiences. I was especially taken aback by a powerful scene later on in the story that simply ended with Malcolm saying "Hey, just so you know... I'm really proud of you." I’ll not spoil the context, but suffice it to say that it brought about some powerful emotions in me.

The actual gameplay is a fairly small but significant part of the experience. The player is given choices throughout the story, such as whether to go out to a party or stay in or to open up to friends about their condition, that alter the game’s events. However, like most decision based games, the overarching narrative changes little over multiple playthroughs. This does not feel like a limitation but rather an accurate representation of real life. More often than not, the choices we make only affect us and possibly those closest to us, but the greater world marches on. To reflect this, the decisions made have a significant effect on what options the player is left with later on, even if major events don't change all that much. Depression Quest uses a brilliant mechanic of crossing out possible options based on the character’s mental state. You can still see these crossed out options, but cannot pick them. For instance, refusing to seek help early on pushes the character further into their depression which in turn limits options to save certain relationships or get help at later points. I absolutely adored this mechanic, as it accurately captured that feeling of wanting to say or do something but can’t, be it due to fear, apathy, or any number of other motivations. This was the aspect of the game I found most interesting and I hope more dialog driven games incorporate the mechanic.

I admittedly can’t fully discuss Depression Quest without acknowledging the elephant in the room; is it even a game? The controversy surrounding the game and it’s creators is well documented and I need not recount them here, but I do feel that discussing Depression Quest’s place in the greater video game canon is important. I’ve obviously been referring to it as a game for the entirety of this post so you can probably figure out my stance on the matter, but why exactly does it deserve a spot in the Steam store? I contend that anything that provides some amount of interactivity that alters the work’s state can be considered a game, and anything that does that in an electronic or video medium gets the title of video game. It’s certainly a very broad definition, but I’d rather err on the side of inclusion than risk losing worthwhile experiences such as this. Forget the serious and important nature of Depression Quest’s subject matter. Do we really want to exclude such goofy experiences as Contradiction: Spot the Liar! or Night Trap? Would Depression Quest having a budget to make environments to explore and enable voiced characters really make it any more of a game? It’s works such as these that make our beloved medium so vital and necessary.

Depression Quest is free to play (with options to donate) and takes less than an hour to complete. I believe there is something that almost everyone can take away from the experience, regardless of mental health state. The experience of inhabiting someone struggling with depression proved to be far more powerful than any reading I had done or any video I had watched. The game is a fantastic example of using video games to spread empathy, and it provides a path forward for games to educate us and make the world a better place. For that alone I give Depression Quest a hearty recommendation.

I heard it's being ported to the Wii U in the coming weeks.

I really wish you hadn't decided to close out on the discussion of game-ness. Most of the discussions of whether or not certain games are Actually Games are coded attempts at contesting an experience's legitimacy, and forcing yourself to address them to justify having enjoyed something lends them undue credence. It's entirely possible to discuss a game's place in the greater ecosystem without having to draw hard lines of what is or is not within a certain canon, and doing so usually only serves to discount the effects other media have on gaming and constrain what "games" are and can be.

The questions that "controversial" games like Depression Quest face have almost nothing to do with any property they possess or lack, but with the audiences they attract, the questions they try to ask and the people that make them. "Is this a game" is not a question Depression Quest is trying to ask, and in my view, it devalues what it is trying to say somewhat to attach that conflict to it, even if the outcome is ultimately "favorable". To lean on a potentially cliched but hopefully relatable analogy, even people who are rubber-stamped into Arstotzka and the inspectors who let them in suffer from the unfairness of the process.

Steam is ultimately a marketplace and distribution platform; there is no way to "deserve" a store page, only to work out a sales deal with Valve. The experience you've had with this game was worthwhile, and you stand no risk of losing it because of the rumblings of exclusionist gatekeeper types. Be they your own hangups or those of the naysayers you worry you'll face, I advise you to let them go.

I actually hated that mechanic of unavailable options. But I think I hated it for the same reason I skimmed the story and actually finished the game very quickly. It felt suffocating playing it. I've always had issues with tight spaces and that game feels like reading myself into a tight corridor. I get annoyed at the character's lack of drive to improve their situation. But that's probably because it reminds me of aspects of myself I am not too fond of. In some way I respect the game for that reason, but I don't necessarily enjoy playing it.

As someone who's suffered from depression, the unavailable options made a ton of sense. That's what it's like. The point is to try and capture it for people that think it's not a big deal. It can be debilitating.

Technically think it's more a chose your own adventure book than a game. There's no gameplay. I appreciate what it does regardless.

Yup! Game's absolutely fantastic, and a great showcase for how interactivity can show things in a uniquely interesting and affecting way.

But it's also one of those games that, while fun in its own way, I extra don't wanna revisit. Papers Please, The Walking Dead, Cart Life. They're just exhausting.

It's almost refreshing to see a good, well-thought look at Depression Quest in 2016, hahah

Personally, I don't understand the argument that it is not a game that some people seem to honestly believe. Thinking about the structure of the game, it's a fairly straightforward adventure game with a mental state mechanic that limits your action set (that, as demonstrated, takes at least one paragraph to explain). It's one of the more game-y Twine games I've played, at least. The possibilities are relatively limited, because it's short. There are games more linear or passive than it that won't be questioned because they're 2D platformers with a jump button, or faux-simulators with numbers going up. On Steam specifically, there are boobie games that infamously gives you, like, at most one branching option. The line people draw over that stuff is so arbitrary and silly. Gone Home I can understand, because it's an almost completely passive experience, but this is a video game in which your decisions have gameplay consequences.

Honestly, I wonder if there would be as much questioning its video game status as there has been if it was released on Steam without the whole thing what happened, which was virtually irrelevant to the game itself. I don't think I had heard anyone even have the thought of the question in the 1.5 years between the original and the Steam release. It really doesn't help to clarify the discussion on an already dodgy subject when there are other motives to target this game at work. GOsh, sorry to rant, the internet just riles me up so much!

@dreiszen: You know, I did go back and forth on whether to discuss the "gamey-ness" of Depression Quest for many of the same reasons you enumerated. I often found the debate around the game to be a dog whistle for the exclusionary members of the gaming community. Ultimately I decided to include the discussion because of my own unfamiliarity with interactive fiction. I certainly don't want to lend credence to so-called gatekeepers' pet theories, as I feel that all forms of expression should err on the side of inclusiveness as a matter of good sense. Apologies if my post came off as ambiguous in this regard.

@wwen: I would argue that the options given and the player's subsequent decision making absolutely constitute gameplay. I compare it to another game I played recently, Until Dawn, which has a similar branching story structure based on the player's decisions. There's no controversy of whether or not Until Dawn is a game, but honestly the only things it has on Depression Quest is a budget to make graphics, environments, and quick time events. In my mind, both are games, with the only difference being the production values. In any case, I'm glad Depression Quest resonated with you.

@theht: "Exhausting" is an interesting word to apply to these games, and one that's not at all inaccurate. There's certainly a great value in socially conscious media but sometimes it can be a slog to spend our precious free time on something that makes us feel worse! In the end, I still try to get myself to play games such as this if only to remind myself of the potential of games as art.

@audiobusting: You seem to have some experience with Twine games. Depression Quest is my first, but I'm now curious to try more games in this style. Do you have any recommendations? Also, don't worry about the rant, I totally get where your frustration is coming from!

I'm pretty sure all of these things are totally intentional.

@darth_navster: it's been a while since I played one so I don't fully remember most of them, and I haven't quite kept up with newer ones. Ones made by Porpentine are generally great (one of my favourites is Skulljhabit, which is probably one of the easier ones to start with). Other personal favourites that come to mind are Horse Master, My Father's Long Long Legs, Sabbat, and Anne Hathaway: Erotic Mouthscape. Oh, warning, the last two are kinda NSFW.

I haven't played many but I loved Queers in Love at the End of the World. It's only 10 seconds long.

That was... incredibly powerful. I mean, holy shit, there's actually something to this Twine nonsense!