A Personal Look Back At Depression Quest

Considering that this game is now available on Steam I thought now would be a good time to put down my thoughts on why I really appreciated it back when it first came out. While I haven't tried out the version that’s on Steam yet (I actually replayed the game again last night via the website, so I think it may be a while before I put myself through it again) I figure most of my points will still be valid regardless of where I played it.

Early 2013 was rough for me. I was dealing with some things that were causing me a great deal of stress and affecting my performance in school, and, while a few really nice things happened (the new Sly Cooper game finally came out and I started following this website) they were all overshadowed by the emotional and motivational issues I'd been dealing with at the time. These cumulated until I had what I would consider to be a bit of a breakdown and that forced me to seek help with what I had been feeling.

A few weeks later I went to a psychiatrist and received the news I had kind of been expecting: I was suffering from depression. While this wasn't exactly a surprise to any of us (my family's concern was one of the reasons I went to seek help), it was still a lot for me to take in. I started looking up various resources online on the subject, looking for other people who had similar experiences, looking for how people cope, I was basically just looking for anything to help me process this. In addition to several other great resources, I found Depression Quest.

Depression Quest is a text-based game in which you (an unnamed character with an unspecified gender) are dealing with depression and are struggling with what exactly it means to cope with that fact. Do you seek help, do you bottle up the feelings, do you accept others’ help, these are all issues brought up in the game.

While my life may not be too similar to that of the player character's (who I initially assumed was a male, as that made the experience more relatable for me) the feelings and thoughts expressed by him echoed many of my own thoughts. In playing the game, I chose things that were closest to what I would realistically do, and not necessarily what the best thing to do would have been. Considering that I was only just coming to terms with my diagnosis and wasn't in the best place emotionally, I did not end that game in the best place. I made some poor choices and my character fell back into some bad, unhealthy routines.

All in all, it was an emotional experience, and that was largely due to how much I could empathize with the main character. I had been struggling with issues of self-worth, a lack of motivation, general sadness, and countless other things (I still do, albeit to more controlled degree), and I was hesitant to seek outside help. In some ways, the similarities were eerie; I had started to vent to a friend (who I had never met in person) on Steam about these things around this time, so it was oddly comforting to see that the developers had chosen to use that as the chat message service as opposed to a more traditional Skype or Facebook (both of which I've rarely, if ever, used). A small detail like that did a lot in helping me connect with the game. The game is riddled with small details that I thought helped the immersion, the fact that you are frequently offered choices you can not follow through with was a great way to convey some thought processes I’ve gone through that prevented me from making what would seem like the obvious choice in an uncomfortable situation.

Following my time with the game, I did receive treatment. I started visiting a therapist regularly and have put a lot of effort into regularly taking my medications. In September, I decided to revisit the game, and that proved almost as emotionally draining as my first experience with it. Similarly to my first attempt, I made the choices that I would honestly make were I in the same situation. To my surprise and relief, I actually ended off on a considerably more positive note than my first run-through. Knowing that I was able to handle these situations better, at least in this abstracted and relatively simple thing, was a feeling that I don't think words could adequately describe, and was just another thing that made me feel better about finally taking the plunge and seeking treatment.

This is a piece I've wanted to write for a while but I've never gotten around to doing so. I had some pretty strong discussions about depression yesterday following the news of Robin Williams’ death, and, considering that the game is now on Steam, I finally decided I should get around to finishing it. I realize this is a bit longer than it needs to be but I just wanted to make sure I wrote something before this slipped my mind again. The game was able to elicit a deep emotional response from me and I think that fact stands as a testament to how well this game portrays depression.

This is a game I have an immense amount of respect for but is also one I can rarely convince myself to come back to. I might try it again next February, on the two year anniversary of my diagnosis (which, coincidentally, was the same day as the initial version of this game) but, until then, I'm content with just knowing that this game exists. It helped me deal with a rough stage in my life and I hope it can help others.