Reviews VideoGame / Depression Quest

For what it is, Depression Quest is pretty good.

Depression Quest, as you may know, is an indie title which aims to replicate the journey of a depressed person. You step into the shoes of this person, and make different choices throughout the game which affects the player character in their ongoing struggle with depression. Over the course of the game, your actions affect how depressed you are - your depression level depends on if you've made the right choices, if you're seeing a therapist and/or if you're taking medication. This system isn't fully representative of every depressed person, but in my opinion it gives a good idea of what the experience is like.

I'll start with the positives: the narrative is very detailed. It ultimately depends on how much you like reading, and how much you can connect to the subject matter. I love reading and was interested in the subject matter, so I enjoyed this game. I feel that a lot of effort has gone into this game - not to the extent of Minecraft or Cave Story of course, as it's more of a choose-your-own-adventure where your different experiences add up to a final score. But for a text-based game with some sort of scoring system, there is a great amount of writing.

And I feel it bears mentioning - I think this is a great utilization of Twine. I've been getting into Twine games, and this game is probably the most ambitious one I've played so far. Most of the ones I've played have just been linear stories, getting you from point A to point B with no other choices. This is the first Twine game I've played with any sort of freedom, and that's interesting to me.

I also related a lot to what the player character was expressing. As someone who was diagnosed as a child, the experiences of the player character hit close to home for me.

As for cons: I don't know if music is that essential, personally I found it distracting. Some people might not like that your partner is female, given that they have a gender-neutral name, but I imagine making them gender-neutral would have drawn more criticism. And I can't speak from experience, but maybe adding medication was a bad idea when it affects people differently.

Overall, I found Depression Quest to be an engaging experience. It makes excellent use of its engine, the story was easy to relate to and it was a bit eye opening. I've only played it once, but I think I'll play it again soon. I recommend it.