😢Depression Quest

There's a chapter on Depression Quest in Videogames for Humans. It starts on pg. 383!

This game is also mentioned in an article entitled "Autonomy,Heteronomy, and Representations of Illness in Digital Games" by Arno Görgen and Stefan H. Simond from Games and Ethics Theoretical and Empirical Approaches to Ethical Questions in Digital Game Cultures.

Depression QuestWikipedia

The Wikipedia page for Depression Quest is a good read for background

Depression Quest was a game that was part of a storm of harassment perpetuated against its author, Zoe Quinn during "Gamergate." It seeks to simulate the negative feedback loop that depression creates in people.

Here's a good critique of Depression Quest: https://web.archive.org/web/20160401144718/http://theorts.tumblr.com/post/54658499774/creating-without-power-narratives-of-madness

Now play Anhedonia

• chapter in VfH; contrasts description of depression w/Depression Quest

• read the commentary by Emily Short in Videogames for Humans

• techniques: timed text, cycle-link

• from the intro of VfH:

Opinion | How an Online Mob Created a Playbook for a Culture War (Published 2019)The New York Times

As an aside: If you want to know more about how Gamergate affected internet culture, see "Everything is Gamergate" (there are multiple articles in this feature--keep scrolling):

From Teaching Games and Game Studies in the Literature Classroom