1365

We start off with this not just because it’s first in alphabetical order, but because apparently it’s the shortest going by other HowLongToBeat average playthrough times.

The game page doesn’t really tell you what it is, except it’s about mental illness in high school. Cool! Okay, not cool. It’s actually a sort of 2D platformer, although you shouldn’t play it if you expect to just play a 2D platformer. Enemies are labelled “dysphoria” and “depression” and “insomnia” and things, and health pickups are labelled “determination” and “patience” and such. It’d be interesting if that was just the atmosphere, but the main purpose is to tell the story. I’m actually not sure it’s even possible to beat this game without losing all your health and pressing continue to pick up right where you left off, because the enemies are unavoidable. Is that the point? It probably is.

Thing is, it seems like a weird way to illustrate that point. This is by all means autobiographical, and the creator would indeed know what depression is like. But the dialogue almost seems comical to me? It’s just like “hey I bet you totally can’t make that jump” “you should turn back right now” and there’s not really much substance to it IMO. Is the point of this game to show the player that if you whatever-the-equivalent-of-holding-forward-is-in-this-metaphor in real life, you can push through anything? I just feel like if that’s all my depression and dysphoria told me, I wouldn’t need to see my psychologist anymore.

Perhaps that’s the issue. I’ve lived with depression for so long that a voice in my head saying “you should give up” just means nothing to me. I’ve had to ignore that, and subsequently my depression has gotten so advanced that it has to come up with things where I can’t immediately tell it’s depression saying it, and create ambiguity where it actually might be reality. So I end up dismissing the dialogue in the game, because yeah whatever the main character has depression, poor bastard, and so I end up just experiencing the game as though it didn’t have the dialogue. But then the point is completely lost. It’s just straight up not a game without that dialogue, it’s not even a 7 minute game. (HowLongToBeat told me 5 minutes, I’m a slow bugger I guess)

I don’t mean to have a go at this game, because it’s someone’s autobiographical game that means a lot to them. But… damn, now I feel like a dick.