Depression Quest
Depression Quest is an interactive fiction game where you play as someone living with depression. You are given a series of everyday life events and have to attempt to manage your illness, relationships, job, and possible treatment. This game aims to show other sufferers of depression that they are not alone in their feelings, and to illustrate to people who may not understand the illness the depths of what it can do to people.
Since the goal is to spread awareness, there is no minumum amount you need to pay to play the game. However, if you do choose to pay the developers for their efforts, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to iFred, a charity that aims to fight back against depression and the stigma against it.This game is not meant to be a fun or lighthearted experience. If you are currently suffering from the illness and are easily triggered, please be aware that this game uses stark depictions of people in very dark places. If you are suicidal, please stop playing this game and visit this link to talk to someone.
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 goes without saying that because of the very nature of depression, it is experienced differently by every person who suffers from it. We aren’t trying to say that this is the “best” or “most accurate” representation, merely that this is an amalgamation of the experiences of the developers and several people close to them. Many of the following encounters deal with issues such as therapy, medication, handling a love life, and reaching out to support networks. In reality, less than half of depression sufferers actually seek treatment, for reasons such as lack of money, perceived personal failing, or public stigma. These things were included in order to touch upon as broad a range as possible, since all these elements can be very important to sufferers of depression, though they will likely not be the experiences of most sufferers.
this got hard for me to play after a bit like sometimes it was waaaay too close to home
my heart started racing a few scenarios in, then i started slightly tearing up, then i started shaking, then “there’s no reason to be ashamed if it’s your brain that’s sick instead” happened & the tears just hit me, but i still managed to finish it all thru my tears
if you CAN play this, you should
please heed the tw tho this is not a liteweight game in the least
