I was uncomfortable about posting Actual Sunlight back in February, and I’m just as uncomfortable about it now, now there’s a free 3D version of it. It’s a game about depression and suicide. A morbid, tragic, and ultimately hopeless game. And that’s why it scares me. Because the game’s honesty about those feelings perpetuates a greater lie. Because there is always hope. There is always a better solution than suicide. I’ve seen friends go from terrifying suicide attempts to beautiful lives where they transform the hope of others. I live with a relatively minor anxiety depression that once controlled me, but now I control it. So sharing Actual Sunlight terrifies me. And yet I believe its brutal honesty about depression is something important, something that doesn’t dismiss the overwhelming cruelty of the condition as “feeling a bit down”. I think that matters.
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