This is why I’m so delighted/horrified that Depression Quest exists. Now I have a poignant way to help friends and loved ones understand what I go through on a daily basis as a person who struggles with severe depression and anxiety disorder. When they don’t understand, I can give them a chance to live a facsimile of my life in an hour. The game’s choice system strikes out logical, healthy options the further you get into your downward spiral, brilliantly emulating in a concrete way what it’s like to feel helpless. It might seem frustrating to a content, happy person to have those choices removed, but that’s what depression does to you. It’s not fun, by any means, but I don’t feel that an experience always has to be positive for you to glean something from it and grow as a person.

That covers the delight. The horror comes from playing it as a person still struggling with these problems every day, and how uncannily accurate the game’s text is at portraying the depths of mental illness. I say “struggling” as opposed to “suffering,” because suffering makes you a victim. Struggling makes you a survivor. It’s a little mantra I adopted years ago during a particularly rough time in my life that ultimately led to an extended period of unemployment and a loss of a lot of my friends. I like to think that I struggle instead of suffer, and Depression Quest gives you the option to do either.

So, on my first run through the game, I asked for help when it was offered. I told my partner what the problem was. I rejected medication, but sought out counseling. I made healthy choices. I wasn’t power gaming so much as taking the path I try to follow in my own life whenever I can.

“Try” being the operative word here.

The results were inspiring. Hopeful, even. Not great, but bright enough that I felt good about the experience. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to see how far the game would go, especially if I took a suffering path. I needed to see how Depression Quest played out – and in a way, how the rest of my life might play out – if I played it as a victim of depression, not a survivor. It’s a role I’ve fallen into more than I care to admit, and based on how many times the game made me look over my shoulder to see if someone was making a game about my life right now, I trusted it to give me a glimpse at the bottom of the downward spiral.

So, close to a month after first playing Depression Quest, I went back in to see what the worst outcome might be.

———

Three hours after deciding to start Depression Quest again, I actually start Depression Quest again.

The opening is the same. I’m a college student, and I have a significant other named Alex. I worry that she doesn’t really “get” what’s going on. We spend a lot of time watching Netflix. It still sounds dangerously close to several of my own past relationships.

After work, I have some options. Where I tried to get some work done on the last playthrough, this time, I decide to crawl into bed. I did this just last night after a long day at work, so it seems fitting. With that one choice, I’ve headed down the other tine of the fork. I’m Very Depressed. I missed several calls from Alex, and almost had a panic attack.

One choice put me in this place. Is every day a choice like this? I try not to think about it too much, but I know I’ll have to eventually. Next.

The night of the party. The option to shake off the funk and go is, as always, struck out. I don’t agree to go. I back out. Alex is upset, but seems to take it well. I beat myself up, both in-game and out. Next.

The confrontation with mother. This is where I try to be honest with her, but that option isn’t available anymore. I can blow her off or change the subject. She tells me to think positive. Nothing new here. That’s how moms are. The game does a good job of characterizing what it’s like to be a 30-something with parents who were born in a time where you didn’t talk about your feelings. Next.

The phone call. My friend wants me to take a kitten from his litter. The last time I was here, I said I couldn’t take a kitten. It was too much to handle. I do the same here. It seems less healthy this time. I really love cats. Next.

Friday afternoon. The call from Alex. In the narrative of Depression Quest, this is where you have a major choice. You can ignore the issue and spend the night watching Netflix, or you can talk to her about your problem. I feel like, at this point, I should try to turn things around. Fuck my experiment. I don’t want this for my avatar. I don’t want this for anybody. I want to talk to somebody about it.

But at this point, all options are removed except for ignoring the issue. There’s nowhere else to go but down. Maybe I’ll have another shot later. Next.

The coffee date with Amanda, an old friend from school. She asks what’s wrong. Here’s my shot. I can notice that my hands are shaking. I can change the subject. Instead, I react aggressively. Though coffee drags on for a bit longer, it’s functionally over at that point. I’m sure I’ve done this to people in the past, and I feel as much a heel now as I did then. Next.

The dentist appointment, followed by a visit from my brother. He’s incredibly successful, while I’ve been grinding my teeth due to stress. When pressed, I lie to him and say it was a routine cleaning. Here, I’m genuinely surprised. My brother can tell something is wrong and wants to take me out to dinner. He was always kind of an ass on my more positive playthrough. Why are people always nicest when you’re at your worst? Next.

Wednesday. The only option is to call in sick. Going in isn’t even an option. We might be out of options at this point. That fear is nothing new. Next.

The next day, the terror of being confronted by the boss makes me linger my mouse over the button for several minutes. I haven’t been in this situation with work before, but I’ve been in this situation with other people. Eventually, I click Next.

Fast forward to 2 a.m. on a Sunday. This entire passage chokes me up to the point that I can’t even put it into words, so I copy/paste it directly:

You roll over to see the sickly green glow of the time displayed on your LED alarm clock and let out an exasperated sigh. You’ve been trying to fall asleep for over three hours now to no avail. Every time your head hits the pillow, you’re overcome with anxious thoughts that wrap themselves around each other. Worries about your job lead to worries about your future lead to worries about your very identity, and you’re unable to shake them off long enough to doze off. Your eyes won’t even stay shut as your mind races through imagined scenarios going horribly wrong, which you promptly attribute to your general worthlessness.

Your thoughts run too fast for you to come to a satisfying conclusion on any one of them. Your room is completely silent, but the silence has given way to a loud static noise rattling around inside your head. Your heart beats loudly and you worry it’s beating a little too fast. You worry that if you focus too strongly on your racing heart, you’ll freak yourself out hard enough that you have a heart attack.

You have to be awake for work in a mere eight hours, and you know your performance has been sagging lately, and that this won’t help the situation one bit.

What do you do?

Jesus. That hits so close to home that shards of it are probable embedded in my front door. Thinking too much and too fast is the reason I have a speech impediment. This was me, three nights ago.

The only option is to avoid sleep and use the computer. I end up in an IM conversation with my friend. No matter what, I end up telling him everything, as it’s part of the story. I feel better, and so does my avatar. But then, the dreaded question of whether to see a doctor or not comes up.

Last time, I said yes. This time, I decline. My friend says there’s no shame in being depressed. Is there? I’m still not so sure after 15 years of being this way. Next.

A long day. No energy left. No chance to reach out to anybody. I don’t burden anyone. I distract myself. It doesn’t work. Next.

Dinner at parent’s. Nothing new. Mom questions me about work. I excuse myself. While in bathroom, brother says he’s proud of me. Never said it before on happier run. Why now? Next.

Alex’s seduction. No choice. Tell her I’m not in the mood. Awkwardness too much for words. I leave. Next.

Work sucks. Turn on the TV and zone out. Numbness. Next.

Online friend needs help. Ignore him. Can’t handle other problems. Sleep. Next.

In bed with Alex. Do I tell her what’s wrong? No. Next.

Friday. Home alone. Drink. Drunk. Drunk dial Alex. Next.

Saturday. Alex wants to know what’s going on. End the relationship. I’m not making her happy. Next.

Christmas. Parent’s place. Brother and his wife are there. How am I doing? I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

No Next. Just the final word from the author.

———

I take an hour or so to process what just happened. What do you write after experiencing all of that? That Depression Quest is an excellent teaching tool for helping people understand what it’s like to live with depression? That it proves that games don’t have to have happy endings to be worthwhile in a narrative sense?

How about the way that it supports the thesis that interactive narratives are the most powerful and effective form of storytelling, when executed thoughtfully?

All of those things seem pretty evident after experiencing two very different playthroughs of what was the most difficult game I’ve ever played.

On my first “run” through Depression Quest, I struggled. I struggled in the way I normally would if I had the resources at my disposal necessary to fight it wholeheartedly. However, in the most literal way possible, Depression Quest is Unwinnable. Even on a “perfect” playthrough, your avatar is still depressed and struggling to keep moving forward. That’s because serious depression isn’t easily cured. There are no hard and fast solutions, and slips are common. It’s like living with a disease, because it is a disease. Depression Quest has to be Unwinnable. It’s the only way the game would have ever had an impact, and I’m glad the authors didn’t cave in to classic gaming conventions by offering a rosy ending. For a lot of people, depression never really ends. You just get better at living with it.

———

I decide to stop writing. I close the browser window to keep the music from looping. I pick up the phone and call my mother. I neglected to tell her that I won’t be leaving the country after all, and she’d be thrilled to hear that. Next.

I round the corner and smile. There’s my boss, aiming in the direction of my approaching team. He’s wide open. I level my replica M16 and fire two shots into his back. He’s out. I move past him into a rear flanking position. I sneak around the garage, ready to sweep the opposing team from behind. It’s perfect. I’m so high on adrenaline, so excited, that I can barely aim at my next target.

My teammate spots me. He doesn’t know my plan. He doesn’t bother to check his target. He fires. I try to slide away into cover, but as I turn, I take a shot in the sternum. It stings a lot more than I thought it would.

It stings because I’m not playing Call of Duty. I’m at the indoor Call of Paintball range in Richmond, British Columbia, attending a birthday party with my coworkers. I’m here not only to celebrate but to feel what it’s like to be shot at, to get as close to a real combat situation as I affordably and safely can. It’s thrilling, satisfying, and terrifying all at once. And after playing paintball, first-person shooters just don’t do it for me anymore.

Mostly, it’s due to a lack of consequence. Aside from a desire to see my experience points climb higher, there’s no incentive for me to win, no reason to play safe when I’m playing online. If I lose in Call of Duty, it’s not the end of the world. I can get into a new match within minutes, with a whole new crowd of people. If I get shot and die, I’m up again in seconds, and the only thing I’ve lost is momentum. With nothing to lose, I generally move around in the open, dive to the ground like an action hero, and act recklessly. There’s no danger here, because digital bullets don’t hurt.

Paintballs do, unfortunately. At long range, you definitely know when you’ve been hit. Most likely, you’ll have a welt for a few days. But from 20 feet, a paintball can break the skin. It makes you think twice about rushing blindly around corners and getting lit up.

The fear of physical pain and the shame of having to walk back to your spawn point with your gun in the air don’t even come close to accurately simulating what it’s like to be in a real-life combat situation, but at least there’s some consequence. When am I hunkered down in a hospital to hold my team’s position (and win the game), one of teammates gets blasted from around a corner, making me jump. I know I have to go in – alone if need be – to flush out the attacker, since blind firing around corners is an illegal and dangerous move.

Do I run in? Do I risk getting shot that close? Do I rally up some help and hope they take the first hit? It’s a lot to think about in the span of two seconds, especially in a game where you can’t afford to hesitate.

It’s not just the risk of getting hurt that causes hesitation. When I poke out the window and see someone from the other team, five feet away and facing the wrong direction, I freeze. I know that he can’t hear me when I shout “Mercy!” at him. Twice. I know I need to shoot him, because I can’t reach him to tag him out, and he might turn and shoot me any second. In the end, I give him an epidural. I can tell it hurts without looking at him, because earlier on, I had a similar thing happen to me. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I need to protect my teammates and stay true to the spirit of the game. I have to make a choice. I have to decide who gets stung.

Call of Duty and other games of its ilk just can’t match these scenarios. When one of my friends falls in front of me when playing online, I’m more concerned with collecting his dog tags to improve my own score than avenging his “loss.” I’m not worried about his well-being. When one of my team members comes back to the meeting room after a paintball match with her hands bleeding, I’m concerned. It’s still a game, but the stakes are higher. It’s hard to go back to a situation where there are no stakes at all. For better or worse, having something to lose just makes for a more thrilling experience.

A few days later, I jump into Black Ops 2 and take the multiplayer for a spin (as I haven’t played Modern Warfare 3 in months and I want to remember what it’s like). The guns sound great. I can call in airstrikes and watch people get blown to hell and back. I’m racking up kills with high-powered weapons and I’m bored out of my mind. Nothing I’m doing compares to running across a fake street and sliding into cover on the other side as paintballs burst against the wall behind me. Or the rush of landing that perfect shot on someone’s mask from high ground with my M16 from halfway across the arena. Or the panic of being pinned down behind an oil drum, balls plinking off metal as I motion for my teammates to fall back and leave me behind.

Once you’ve tasted that kind of experience, piloting a floating gun and deleting 13-year olds from the field just doesn’t have the same pull anymore. It’s a great argument for getting outside more. Video games can take us to fantastic, impossible worlds that could never exist in our reality. They can delight us with gripping plots and thoughtful characters. But when it comes to recreating real-world activities and settings, there’s just no way they can ever match the real thing.

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Follow Michael Rousseau’s paintball career further on Twitter @mikerousseau.

For collectors, complete seasons of Power Rangers have always been hard to come by, as many of the earlier series never saw full home media releases. Thankfully, just in time for the holidays and the show’s 20^th anniversary, comes Power Rangers: From Mighty Morphin’ to Lost Galaxy, a complete and fairly robust Time Life DVD collection of the seven seasons that made up the entire ’90s run of the show.

But do you really need seven seasons of Power Rangers? That depends. Can you get past the ridiculous premise of an inter-dimensional wizard choosing five teenagers to wear spandex and use robots to fight ancient evil? Will you be able to cope with the incredibly formulaic makeup of each episode, where a problem is introduced, the big bad attacks, the Rangers repel and escalate as needed, and then everything is solved with a giant robot fighting a guy in a kaiju monster suit? How about the heavy-handed yet well-meaning moral lessons that saturate every episode? Are you liable to cringe from the preaching?

If this all sounds okay – even kitschy and fun – to you, then you’re going to love this collection.

Every episode, from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers right down to Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, is lovingly presented in its original form, with no noticeable edits or visual upgrades. This is the way we were meant to see the show, as a sometimes-grainy, nostalgic production, filled with terrible CG and sparks flying from everybody’s chests. A Blu-ray release may have been more pleasant to watch, but part of the allure of Power Rangers is in its vintage quality. It’s campy. It’s cheesy. It’s as glorious as I remember and, somehow, still relevant.

The first box holds the three seasons that made up Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. While reproduced faithfully, these seasons are an entertaining mess caused by Saban’s unwillingness to part with the original dinosaur-inspired costumes from the first season. The three seasons contain footage taken from three separate Super Sentai seasons, re-cut and pasted together with terrible writing. Plots holes and continuity errors abound here, and fans will love every minute of it.

The second box starts with Power Rangers Zeo and marks the beginning of Saban using only one Sentai season to produce one season of Power Rangers. The costumes are silly, but fresh, and the villain switch-up keeps things from going too stale. Power Rangers Turbo is next, and it’s here that the show starts to mature along with its audience. The Rangers are getting ready for college. Their mentor leaves suddenly, replaced by a cryptic sage who challenges the Rangers to solve their own problems for once. It’s hopeful, yet unsure, much like the pre-teens and junior high students who were facing their own life transitions at the time. However, it’s only partially unfamiliar territory. The monsters are still hilarious, giant robots still beat everything, and good always triumphs. Sort of.

Turbo ends on a down note, with the Rangers losing their command center, making way for the jump to Power Rangers in Space. Here, things start to get a little more serious. The fate of the whole universe is at stake. Relationships start to bloom between good guys and baddies. Allegiances are questioned. People get seriously injured. Things are resolved by the series’ conclusion, and though it’s a bittersweet ending, it marks a logical end to the saga.

It’s understandable that a show this popular would keep going, so in the interest of keeping the ’90s legacy of the show intact, the second box also includes 1999’s Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, probably the most unique season on offer. A few characters from In Space make return appearances, but for the most part, this is a whole new gang in a new setting with a much darker villain. Multiple people die over the course of the show and, for the first time, a Ranger’s helmet will break. It’s a departure from the very first season’s lighthearted antics, and probably the most watchable season in the collection, both from a storytelling and visual standpoint.

For students of popular culture and fans of the show, the special features packed into both boxes are fairly interesting. Every featurette provides its own insight into the Power Rangers phenomenon. Cast interviews shed light on how the show was originally made and cut together, and the lost pilot episode gives a sense of just how far the show has come in the last 20 years. Even the hour-long White Ranger karate lesson and Christmas special are worth viewing, just to get a better look at exactly how deep into North American culture the Power Rangers were ingrained during the show’s peak popularity.

This is the kind of box set that die-hard fans will love. There’s nothing missing here, no glaring omissions or lost content, and it’s nice to finally have a definitive, complete collection of the show’s beginnings in one place. It’s also a crash course in American children’s entertainment for budding pop culture enthusiasts, and for newer fans, a great primer to the series’ mythos. You definitely need to have some interest in campy action to warrant a purchase like this, but if you do, it’s a no-brainer.

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Power Rangers: From Mighty Morphin’ to Lost Galaxy is only available at www.powerrangersondvd.com for an MSRP of $219.95 USD. Review copy provided by Time Life. Illustrations by Amber Harris.

In 1964, a Canadian scholar named Marshall McLuhan came up with the idea that “the media is the message” – simply put, it’s just as important to study the way content is delivered, and not just the content itself, to get the whole picture. He also came up with the theory of hot and cold media: all media can be ranked on a scale, from hot to cold, based on the amount of interaction required to take in its content. (Cooler media are considered lower resolution, and require more than one sense to process. Hotter media have a higher resolution, and require fewer senses to enjoy.)

Take a radio program, considered a hot medium, compared to a novel, which is decidedly cool. When you read a novel, you have to parse the text, visualize the content, and voice the characters internally in order to get the full experience. A radio program delivers the text to you audibly and gives the characters voice, leaving you with the sole task of letting the words enter your ear holes while your brain weaves the tapestry of events.

Of course, the hot/cool scale is relative and dynamic. A radio program is hotter than a novel, but a movie is much hotter than both of them, as it removes the visualization aspect entirely and requires even less effort from the viewer.

I once posited that this hot/cool scale could also apply to different pieces of content within a specific medium. Take videogames as an example. You could argue that movies are hotter than videogames, as players have to take an active role in progressing the story and action as opposed to passively letting a movie do the work for them. Regardless, games are still hotter than most media. But within the realm of videogames, there’s a drastic temperature range, from text-based adventures that require as much, if not more effort than a novel to enjoy, to QT-laden titles like Asura’s Wrath that require little player input to advance.

Every medium, including toys, has its own internal scale. Back in the early 1900s, when dinosaurs and great-grandfathers roamed the earth, toys were simple. A wooden horse came with no personality or poseability. It was up to you, the participating child, to move the horse around, make neighing sounds, and decide what kind of horse it was. In the 1960s, Action Man figures, though lacking backstory, were detailed enough to take some of the load off of children’s imaginations.

Then came Star Wars, and from there, everything changed. Star Wars provided us with figures that required less imagination than ever. Kid, this isn’t a random soldier you’re holding. This is Luke Skywalker. He comes with a whole backstory, a voice provided by the films, and lots of awkward feelings towards his sister. All you need to do is decide what crazy adventure to send Luke on. From G.I. Joe to today’s movie and television tie-in figure lines, all modern toy lines now come with their own prepackaged personalities. Imagine a setting, and off you go. The character development is already handled.

Skylanders takes the trend a step further. Not only do these little guys come with their own histories, voices, and mannerisms, you don’t even have to physically interact with them aside from placing them on a glowing surface. No more banging two figures together to simulate fighting. Place them on the table and mash on A to watch them stream fire and hurl rocks at their enemies. Want them to move? Don’t pick them up! Use the controller to guide their fully animated forms across a vividly colored landscape that you didn’t even have to imagine as you’re taken through a story that you didn’t have to create with your own lobes.

Essentially, Skylanders figures remove visualization and direct contact from the experience of playing with toys altogether. As I stated earlier, this could have an effect on the development of our next generation’s imaginations. Nobody would blame you for thinking that Skylanders is lazy, requiring no interaction, and could lead to lazy minds. Your brain is a muscle. If you don’t exercise it, it atrophies over time. Hot media, then, wouldn’t push the mind as hard as cold media, and since Skylanders is hot, it must be killing our children, right?

But what if removing visualization from the act of playing with toys by blending them with games could actually benefit a developing child’s imagination? Based on my personal experiences growing up with games and hot toys, it definitely seems possible.

I’ve taken aptitude tests my entire life. Sometimes they came from my teachers; others I performed independently out of curiosity. No matter what, the results always came back the same. On a general one-to-ten scale, I always found that I ranked nine or ten out of ten in every single aptitude category save one: spatial relations, and by extension visualization, are my kryptonite.

Tell me to walk five feet, and I’ll have to think hard about how far that actually is. Tell me to picture a cube, and I’ll construct a shaky, hard-to-maintain outline in my mind that I can’t adjust in my mind’s eye without destroying it. Even failing to concentrate causes it to vanish. It’s been an issue my whole life, and it makes playing Professor Layton games something of a personal embarrassment.

Growing up, I had a hard time developing my imagination during play, not because my toys were too hot, but because I couldn’t visualize things for them that weren’t physically there. All of their voices were mine. Their battlegrounds were always my bed and floor, because I just couldn’t picture a pile of blankets as a mountain the way my friends could. I started to think that I would never develop my own sense of creativity and imagination.

When I was in the first grade, we had the opportunity to use our newfound writing skills to craft our own stories, and some of the really cool sixth graders would illustrate them for us. This is where I first found my knack for writing, and while most of my classmates got their token tale bound with cardboard for their shelves at home, I ended up with about half a dozen stories. My parents still have them. (Parents love hoarding embarrassing reminders of their children’s formative years.)

The trick with those stories was taking concepts and places I had seen in movies and video games and shaping them to my needs. My first story was about a turtle travelling to see his relatives; it followed the basic plot and structure of Pitfall. Later, I wrote a story inspired loosely by Pac-Man. It was about a brave armadillo with a sword, shredding ghosts for his somnambulist spider roommate. With that story, I threw in a little Swordquest for good measure ­– it was my first attempt to blend my game experiences together into a unique story.

The tales were a bit derivative, but this is where my imagination began to grow. Games and movies served as visual, concrete examples of places, people, and things that could exist, and helped to kick-start my little mind. These were things I could see and study and commit to memory, so that when it came time to create my own worlds and characters, I could use what I had seen as a framework. Like a sculptor using scaffolding to surround and gain access to a large piece of marble, these tropes elevated me. Once the work was done, the scaffolding fell away, leaving me with unique creations that, over time, resembled their inspirations less and less.

Skylanders figures may not provoke use of imagination directly, but they have every opportunity to inspire a new generation of thinkers by giving them worlds to draw on when creating their own fiction. Not everyone can start their lives reading War and Peace. Think of Skylanders as training wheels. Kids will (hopefully) end up creating their own worlds around them; when an entertainment property becomes this successful, it’s inevitable. Over time, as they become more comfortable riding on their own, they just might discard those training wheels, taking the balance and confidence they gained from having them to help them pedal towards their own creative ideas.

The only real danger that Skylanders poses, aside from wallet drain, is if the training wheels never come off. If the figures, and whatever follows them, fail to inspire young minds in the way I was inspired by the media I explored in the ‘80s, they may become attached to them and never grow.

That may not become an issue. Even as a cynical 30-year old gamer, I’m still charmed by the personalities and range of environments that Skylanders offers. The design is rudimentary, sure, but there are some genuinely creative character designs at play here, and some great messages within each figure’s unique story. If I had Skylanders when I was a kid, my own stories would have developed quite differently. There’s a greater well for children to draw upon in creating their own fiction than there ever was before, and those waters are only going to run deeper. So long as we encourage our youth to dig their own wells, and not stay in stagnant waters, I don’t believe that there’s any harm in letting our toys play with us.

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Visualize Mike Rousseau’s tweets @mikerousseau.