Depression Simulator
https://www.depressionquest.com
This simulator resembles a "choose your own adventure" story where you followa character who suffers from depression. You will follow along and at various story points, be presented with a set of choices for how you want to continue. As you become more depressed, you'll find your character faced with less and less options, while as your condition improves, you'll find your character presented with more options to get through things. This simulator also features changing mood music to help enhance the experience, e.g. more depressing music as your character's condition worsens.
You may find this simulator useful if:
- You're looking to get a better understanding of what it's like to suffer from depression
- You'd like a way to try and help someone else understand what it's like to suffer from depression
***Warning!*** This simulator can be very intense and may trigger. If you're feeling vulnerable or you're not in a good place where you can handle your mental illness being triggered, please use caution when you use this simulator.
This is really interesting, I'll definitely check it out. Thanks for sharing! :)
It is an interesting game and deals with the subject of depression in a gentle, yet realistic light. I have watched a video of someone going through the game and I have tried it myself so I can recommend it. However, as the OP mentioned it deals with triggering feelings and sitautions so I would not advise anyone to try it if you're feeling low or vulnerable. My advice would be that youmight find it useful to have someone with you whilst the play the game in case it becomes too much, which is something I would prefer persoanlly speaking. :)
I've played through it before, and it was helpful at the time, so I recommend it, though take care as it could be intense for some. It's quite a realistic depiction. For me, it helped bring my depression into focus, as it's quite easy to not actually realise how depressed you are, it just becomes normal to you. It was helpful to see that the main character was at times coping Ok on the surface, yet he was clearly still depressed. At times I've had issues due to wrongly thinking I wasn't depressed enough for it to count, since I was still doing stuff.
The one thing, though of course it can't cover everything, is there's not much about depression due to circumstances, except about his job. Part of me actually felt resentful of the main character (though I wanted to see him recover), because he had a supportive partner. It was interesting, though a bit disturbing, to realise that I could feel that way. Trying to talk about the game with my family, got me shouted at. Sigh...
I agree that the simulation in no way covers the entirety of the spectrum of experiences, but I think it does a good job of presenting what it's like for this one particular fictional character. I feel that where this shines is it illustrates how our depression slowly robs us of our ability to function, and where someone who's healthy might see an array of possible options, we'd see maybe one or two that don't look good at all. The music also really captures how dark things can get when things start spiralling downwards.
On the other hand, I feel that another important point that this simulation demonstrates is that while we are depressed, we may see many instances where someone could be offering you help, or you could be opening up to someone close, but you just can't bring yourself to open up and engage.
I do agree that your own experiences won't necessarily be as positive as what happens to the character when you open yourself up in your own life. In my own instance, trying to bring up the issue with my parents did not go over well either.
For those suffering from depression, be careful about who you open yourself up to. Choose someone close that you can trust. Understand also that it will likely be very difficult for them to empathize, regardless of how much they want to help you.Try and be patient with them, as well as with yourself. It's a learning process for both of you.
Thank you for sharing this with us! I just played through it. It really made me think a lot, and I appreciate you sharing this with us :)
Very intense- definitely resonated strong for me, personally. I have to admit I was choking back tears for most of it.
I wonder how people who haven't been depressed before would perceive or understand this.
I read through and played through the entirety of this, and I'm happy to say that I made it through to the other side, agreeing to medication and therapy. As a person who has gone through and experienced depression, I would say this is an accurate interpretation of how things typically go, and I thank you for bringing this to the light.
Something I would also recommend if you're interested in learning more about how depression feels like: try the simulation more than once, but each time, experiment with different choices. Based on those choices, you'll see the character's story change each time, e.g. see the difference that happens when you choose to bottle up all the emotions versus telling someone close to you.