As somebody who currently lives with depression, I found the Depression Quest game refreshing though not without a few minor flaws. I feel like the way that I have experienced depression fit in well with the structure of the website insofar as the options were limited to only 3 or 4 possible choices. The usually-struck-through first option showed a sort of “ideal situation” that was out of the question for reasons of exhaustion or inability to commit fully to the kind of action it required. Though I know that a lot of interactive media and the format of the choose-your-own-adventure storyline are structured similarly in such a way that DQ is by no means revolutionary in terms of form, it felt from a personal perspective not so much as a retreading of old territory but a decently novel approach to a frequently used format.
Not only that, but the structure of the choices, not knowing which ones would be “correct” in the sense that there was no way to “win,” and only having very few because of the aforementioned mental and physical exhaustion, lined up particularly well with my own experience of depression; sometimes, you know what a good choice might be, but every decision feels like a gamble, and sometimes some days are just painfully harder than others for no particular reason.
The narrative elements and the narrator’s own dialogue shared some feelings I have concerning telling other people about it, partly because of its stigma, partly because some people think it’s just a matter of will, and also because it is sometimes just difficult to explain. I do genuinely feel like a burden to friends and family sometimes, and usually it’s easier to just say you’re okay. However, and I know that the prologue mentions that the story is by no means an all-inclusive, universal representation of living with depression, I did think that the narrative lent itself to a certain type of reader. If the ‘player’ who approaches the game has depression and wants to play around with the options in order to see what kind of choices might be possible or what kinds of consequences there are for therapy, medication, etc. then they already have to have access to the internet and the privilege of knowing this game exists.
Furthermore, even though the game does a good job of showing how therapy and medication can help, if a person plays through and realizes this is a good course of action, they may not be able to follow the steps of it due to a lack of health insurance, transportation, monetary resources, family support, etc. The game is definitely positive in terms of providing a means of destigmatizing depression and modeling a particular experience in such a way that an interactor can toy with the choices they have been unable to make before. I even have to wonder whether or not a person with depression might necessarily have the focus required to get through all of the text, because the game is so text-heavy and light on any other types of narrative elements. I wonder how a game about depression might be different if it incorporated more sound, more visuals, or played with space and time beyond merely being presented on a screen. I certainly can’t knock the game for being one of a few (of which I am aware, anyways) games that deal with mental health and discuss it at all. But I feel like the symbolic limitations of language might not be able to articulate certain aspects of depression, though that does seem to be part of the frustration of the protagonist in the story- that they don’t know how to put into words what they feel. I’ve felt that way before as well, but it might be interesting to see a game that incorporates more than a frustration with being unable to articulate a feeling.
Digital Media Theory 
I’d never played this game before, and I have to say, it’s eerily similar to my experience with depression. Almost everything that happens, I’ve felt. It’s amazing (if that’s the right word) how accurate this game is at depicting such a dark concept.
With that being said, I completely agree about the text-only aspect being a turn-off. It’s hard to focus, and it’s a little too one-dimensional. With that being said, I’m not exactly sure how to ‘fix’ that issue. I think the suggestion of sound is an excellent one.
“They may not be able to follow the steps of it due to a lack of health insurance, transportation, monetary resources, family support, etc.”
This is a really important point. Money and health insurance is a big one. And while I think our world is getting better, we definitely still live in a time in which depression and other mental illnesses are heavily stigmatized. That means that “getting help” is a lot harding than it sounds, sadly.
I know you have another post arguing for the purposes and potential advantages of anachronistic design, but I personally felt the minimalist design was fitting. When talking about depression, there’s often the urge to use cliches like “the prison of your mind,” and I think that speaks to one of depression’s chief features: the fact that it’s such a limiting disease, one that seems to sap the color out of life until all that remains is gray. In that sense, I felt that the technological limitations of Quinn’s project were good at conveying how depression similarly limits both the lives and the emotional experiences of sufferers.
In general, I guess I view depression as a disease of static movement and stillness, and so I’m just a bit ambivalent about adding more technologically advanced components, as they could the game feel more dynamic and vivid. Failure of language is a part of depression that Depression Quest seems to forget, and I do think that sound or images could help to illustrate that attribute better than words, but I would want these features to be added in a way that still preserves the flattening, oppressively limiting atmosphere the text-only format currently conveys.
I felt the game packaged the perspective of depression well. Not only does it have playability, but its educational/awareness potential is clear to see.