This game is real.
Despite me being a person who is typically uninterested in walking sims outside of a few exceptions, this game immediately struck a nerve with me as something that looked worthwhile. It was just something about the first screenshot or two that drew my attention, and for the price of free, why not give it a shot?
It was only upon starting the game proper and seeing the name "Demensa" pop up that I realized "Oh ♥♥♥♥, I know this guy!" as I recognized the name of a person whose artwork occupied space in my numerous hard drives of things important to me. Honestly it should have been more obvious to me upon seeing the screenshots, as Demensa has a pretty distinctive style, but you have to understand that I wasn't examining them closely at first. Once I realized that this was made by that same artist, I had an idea of what I was in for, but to say my expectations were met would be a tremendous understatement. What I initially assumed would be something more akin to a 15-minute statement on being in a depressive rut (which the game does lean into at the very beginning), turned out to be a 3+ hour experience that has a rather absurd amount of effort and passion behind it for a game that is, once again, FREE. It feels a little criminal that this doesn't have a price tag, honestly. A huge amount of work went into this, and you can really feel it. This game has several moments where, as it goes on, you start to notice things, and start thinking "The developer didn't have to do this. It wasn't necessary to add this feature in to get their message across, but they did, and the experience is so much richer as a result because of it." This is not an uncommon feeling whilst playing this game, at least it wasn't for me.
The gameplay itself is incredibly simple. For the vast, vast majority of the experience, you are walking around, interacting with the environment and other characters, reading a large amount of dialogue, and being immersed in the atmosphere that the game creates through absolutely perfect choices of sound and music to elicit the feelings it wants you to understand. This is also supported by the graphical style of the game which is unique to the artist behind it, both the dull//depressing/violently aggressive moments, as well as the moments of, at times, jaw-dropping beauty, filled with an incredible use of color and subtle motion that is rare to find elsewhere in a similar form. It is difficult to accurately describe just how beautiful some moments of this game are, and it's something that you would not expect if you were to simply judge the game based on the first few minutes of starting it, but this title truly does have moments of honest representations of true tranquility and comfort within it that I so rarely see.
That said, even these moments aren't always safe from the rest of the sorrow that encompasses the majority of the experience. This is something that I respect deeply from the developer. They aren't afraid to tear-down or crack a moment that would likely be seen as a well-deserved moment of calm and peace by some players. And this isn't done in some "haha got you things are actually always bad" kinda way, but in a much more genuine sort of "I am truly appreciative but this doesn't mean the problem has gone away" kinda way. Sometimes you can sort of feel that it's coming, which create a really nice feeling of unease in moments that might seem "safe" otherwise. Again, it's a really well done experience that had enough variety to keep you thinking "Wow, that was pretty cool actually! What's the developer going to do next?"
A lot of people make fun of the whole "le indie game about le depression" trope, but there's a reason it exists, and there's a reason why they strike a cord with so many people, and let me tell you, for a person like me, to go through a game like this, and see someone express their struggle in such a brutal and real way, well, it hits hard. Real hard. Hard to the point where I had to pause at several moments just to admire how well another human being was able to express a near identical feeling to what I myself have felt so many times about myself. Of course, logically, most people understand that they aren't alone in these sorts of feelings, and they understand that many suffer like they do, but that doesn't suddenly solve the issue, though it can be comforting to know that others can understand the struggle.
If you're a person who has experience with feeling of depression, loneliness, self-neglect, self-hatred, and has ever had the thought "I don't deserve to be considered a human being and the world would be a better place if people like me did not exist" because of whatever reason (possibly one that is completely out of your control), then this is a game from a person who very much feels that way, and is willing to show it in all of its ugliness. I have to give high praise to Demensa for this, for their willingness to lay bare what is a very real representation of who they are as a person. I will say that knowing the sort of art this person draws did lead to a stronger emotional resonance from myself at a few key parts, but it's certainly not vital for a person to be aware of these things to appreciate this to a great degree. The game is it's own self-contained work, no worries there.
I can't say that this is a game for everyone. Nor can I claim that the game is perfect. It has a few irritating bugs [spoiler](I genuinely got stuck on that computer section because my window became overly horizontally stretched until I reset the game but I genuinely thought it was supposed to look the way it did due to the sketchy nature of it all at the time)[/spoiler], navigation can be a little confusing at points, and sometimes it can be just a little difficult to determining what the game wants you to interact with [spoiler](one specific chair in a hospital that I didn't notice caused me a little hassle but nothing too awful. I would say the maze section took a bit too long)[/spoiler]. I also feel that the game does move just a bit too slow at some points, but I think this was more a result of it not always being very clear where I was supposed to go, so if I made an error and had to backtrack, it felt a bit longer than I would have liked in these parts, but this wasn't an issue when the path was clear. In the end, the developer said it best. "You walk around and press the 'interact' button". That is the extent of the gameplay, minus a few moments of comedic levity, some minor mini-game type sections, and a few occasional (non-obvious) puzzles. If you're looking for something more than that, like heavy skill-based gameplay, look elsewhere. That's not what this is, and it's not what it's trying to be.
It's somewhat rare for me to feel the need to post a review immediately after playing a game, but that's what I felt the need to do here. Demensa, you may or may not accept the words I am telling you here (if you are anything like me, praise can be an incredibly difficult thing to accept), but what you've made here is absolutely deserving of a high level of praise. You have absolutely outdone yourself in bringing a very real part of who you are to light, and have a knack for making others FEEL through your work. Take that however you want, but I am appreciative having played this game, and I think it's going to stick with me for years to come. Thank you for this.
Oh, and add a supporter DLC pack or something next time. Let people give you something for your hard work. Seriously.
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