Actual Sunlight

This is short, it has an outcome that is unavoidable no matter what the player decides, and is no more than guiding the protagonist from one encounter to another. Have I lost you yet? Hope not. Becuase what makes this game is it's honesty, having a depiction of depression that has never been seen before in this medium. It may not be a crowd-pleasing title but it a brave title nonetheless

While I don't disagree with the basic concept, or even some of the points presented - I know all too well just how soul-crushing and lonely it can be to be depressed, and what sort of things suicidal ideation can foster within you, I can't say that this game handles it all that well. It essentially seems to be a longhanded version of "Everything sucks, I messed it all up, I don't have the confidence or will to fix it, so It's all over for me now". It's... odd. I see the problems the main character has and my mind immediately goes to solutions, to remedies. Maybe he'd be able to afford a better life if he stopped mindlessly spending, maybe he'd have an easier time connecting with people if he could stop shooting himself in the foot, maybe he'd have more fufilment in life if he set small, but reasonable goals and worked towards them. As said, I know it's not that easy - I've been where this person is, I know how it weighs, but at least to me it seems as if this person became enamoured with his own misery. He uses his sadness as a shield to protect him from any attempt he might make to fix it all, trying anyways and blaming the failiures on his inherrant traits. It's always "I'm f…

hauntingly beautiful and brutal portrait of someone worn down after years and losing their battle with their own brain

El juego trata la depresión y tendencias suicidas de una persona desde su punto de vista, y por tanto, tiene un tono amargante y depresivo. Eso no lo critico. Lo que si critico es las parrafadas crípticas que suelta el protagonista en muchas ocasiones. Son complcadas de leer en algunos casos, y casi siempre son exageradas y hacen una montaña de un grano de arena (que entiendo que ese es el punto, una personalidad suicida verá las cosas simples mucho más complejas y a peor de lo que son). El juego está bien, pero como tuvo cierta fama en su momento, pensé que sería mucho mejor de lo que realmente es. Aún así, es barato, y trata un tema que no se toca muy a menudo y debería tener más relevancia pública.

I usually like these kind of emotive and raw small games done in rpg maker, but unfortunately I can't recommend this one. Obviously, this is totally story (text) driven, so I won't talk about the simple to none gameplay that it has, where a lot of other similar games at least have a little more detail to in general and are less "boring"; just by focusing on the story, I think the game has really nothing interesting to say besides and amalgam of what depression could feel like in some cases, with just a ton of self-deprecating texts and what I think its a really shallow and explicit standpoint. I've seen a lot of better indie works on depression, even in the same medium, some small like Depression Quest, or Omori at a much larger scale, so I know that this is a really important topic to talk about, and at the same time that makes me understand that it can't be taken as "lightly" as some do; maybe I can get the point of the straight forwardness that Actual Sunlight kind of takes, but still I don't really appreciate the way is being handled and actually makes me kind of worried if the person who make it is going through something remotely similar of what the games describes.

Powerful. A story that needs to be heard.