The real brilliance of Depression Quest is not really in the storytelling. The story itself was ok, but it was not at all like reading a memoir of someone with depression trying to explain to the reader “this is what it is like to feel depressed.” Instead the story used the twine decision trees to make more concrete what it feels like your mental health inhibits your sense of agency and freedom.

The optional links to additional information I thought was a really great aspect of this style of storytelling, partly because you can appeal to people who don’t need a lot of extra info, as well as those who do like extra info. I also, think linking to extra information rather than putting it in the main body of the text is necessary if you want to make it easier for people to go through your story multiple times without getting bored. I think it’s a really interesting way of allowing the storytelling to adapt to its medium.

I didn’t play through enough times to figure whether or not the future options were blocked due to previous decisions, or rather just there to let us know that for a depressed character these options just aren’t as plausible. If it was the former, I think in a way it is sort of being true to the moods of a depressed person. I’ve definitely experienced sudden improvements in my mood that affects my behavior, but a lot of times the more bad decisions I make the worse my mood gets and the harder it is to make healthy decisions. I appreciated the gradual rise in the character’s mood as I made tiny healthy decisions. I also think that this way is a good message to people dealing with depression to pay attention to small opportunities to make healthy choices.