Trapped in a loop: How Unemployment Simulator 2018 brilliantly represents depression

In between the mundane, everyday acts of maintenance that your character undertakes in Unemployment Simulator 2018, his phone will occasionally buzz.

More often than not the messages are from the unemployment office, or it’s a news alert about some all-too-frequent global disaster, and your mental health status visibly takes a hit from having read them. But every now and then — just frequently enough that you’ll keep checking — your character receives a funny meme, and your endorphin level surges. The risk/reward of the notification-checking system mostly errs on the side of risk, but there’s just enough hope there to keep checking.

This is good. In Unemployment Sim, your character can’t perform the four arbitrary but necessary daily chores to complete the day — wash up, shower, read the mail, clean the toilet, brush his teeth, etc. — if those endorphin levels are too low. It mimics the paralysis that a depressive episode forces upon you incredibly well for what seems at first like a simple gameplay mechanic. In my experience, sometimes depression can just defeat you like this, making every task feel insurmountable.

And then there are the texts from your character’s mum.

These come through at random. If and when you read them, your character’s mental health tanks, falling to the point that you might need to down a beer or watch some porn just to recoup the dregs of endorphins required to complete your mundane tasks for the day. 

If you’ve never been unemployed for a lengthy period of time, or suffered from depressive episodes or periods of anxiety, that might sound odd. Why should a text from a loved one cause your mental well-being to crater? 

It’s because the gulf between what they want for you, and the reality of your experience, is so vast that you feel in your heart you’re letting them down by not living up to the life they want for you. Even if intellectually you know they mean you only the best, every job listing they send or kind missive they share with you is a reminder of that gulf between their messages and your perceived reality. Because you’re worthless, and incapable of improving, their efforts are just wasted time, and the guilt of that settles on you all too regularly.

Unemployment Simulator 2018 is shot through with these minor experiences that feel entirely authentic to anyone who has experienced depression and anxiety.