Gay and Depressed

The first of many. When I first saw this title I laughed. As far as being humorous, the main thing about it I find amusing is how bad it is.

The plot was pretty much all over the place with you following some girl you have a crush on and never have a happy ending with. The endings are either your girlfriend kills you, a criminal kills you, or you kill yourself with most of the deaths usually occurring via a Rube Goldberg mechanism of demise.

There is a lack of description and dialogue as well as a noticeable lack of coherency to the narrative which leads me to conclude this story was written without any serious thought put into it.

This story’s defining attribute is the unintentional hilarity through poor writing and serving as an amusing reminder of what a low quality storygame looks like and how to avoid a similar fate.

Other than that it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve read and it managed to get a few unintended laughs

"You guys see the mugger come back and he shoots you"

So far the mugger is my favorite villain in a CYS story,the way the page just wraps up how he came back and murdered us.

So beautiful.

This story could have been longer, it feels like you make 2-3 choices before committing suicide, making someone get hit by a bus, or getting offed by the worlds best villain.

I think you could have gone into more detail here, why is our hero depressed? A major life event, several? Is he depressed just because he is gay? If so, does that really make much sense?

Does the hero have any other reason for living other than having someone to get killed with?

There's a lot of details that could have been worked in pre-depression and during/post depression. Any way, story was alright.

Well this was interesting, I'll give it that. A few random things to point out.

1. You do realize that on page one, there are three options that all say the same thing but lead to different pages... What is the point in that?

2. You forgot to sign your permission slip? I kind of thought the whole point of permission slips was that somebody else is supposed to sign them.

3. You try to tell your crush you like her, but end up accidentally screaming in her face? ... Whoops. Yeah, that's going to set off a few red flags, try not to do that to do that in the future.

4. The girl you had a crush on doesn't like you back, and so your only option is to kill yourself? Oh the unspeakable pain of first world problems. I really don't understand how anybody makes it past the age of 20 in this cruel, cruel world.

5. The game doesn't really make it clear that the character you're playing is a girl, (except for that one scene where your girlfriend punches you in the boob. That was random.)

Other than that, it was definitely a fun read. Kind of puts me in mind of the Harry Potter fanfic My Immortal. If you plan to do a follow up game, try making the main character a satanist, and have her breakdown crying, asking "Why did Satan make me so beautiful?" ^_^

Oh...what fun...

- - Quick Review - -
Well well well, so this is where it began. It’s so simple, yet hilarious. It’s random and fun. It is gay and it is depressed. I would definitely recommend, especially if you like gay things, depressed things, funny things, quick things, or are gay (however if you are both gay and depressed you may need to make sure you understand why suicide is bad first).

SPOILERS BELOW. YOU DON’T WANT THE STORY TO BE LIKE EXPIRED MILK

- - Highlights - -
First of all this story is so stupidly spontaneous. It is so random and funny, it was a wild ride. It escalated and deescalated very quickly, making for an exciting journey of twists and turns. I think if I was to draw out a map of all the branches in this story it would look like an intense lightning storm.

I appreciated the randomness for the results of telling the crush that she was your crush. It made this story feel more realistic (ha).

The branching in this story was insane, especially when length is taken into account. The choices were all fun to make, it felt like steering a runaway train.

I found the pages with about singular sentence inexplicably hilarious. The mugger coming back to shoot me and my lesbian girlfriend, my mom having a funeral for me that no one went to, it was funny for absolutely no reason.

The humor in this story was next to peak. From the wild events such as the main character’s punched breast implant inflating and carrying her away, to the slightly sad fact that no one goes to your gay and depressed funeral; what this story lacks in a lot of things it makes up for in random humor.

- - Now for the straight depressing bit - -
This story had several issues. For one, most pages only had about a paragraph of writing, if even that, which led to the story being not very descriptive. I just would’ve liked the action and characters to be more drawn out.

Most of the characters had very limited traits, and by limited I mean one to two traits tops. The main character is, well, gay and depressed. Her brother is disloyal. Her crush is the only one who’s ever seemed to care about the main protagonist. The mc’s mom cares enough to host funerals. Very very limited characterization, it could’ve been drawn out much better.

The SPAG issues were, put simply, rough. Little things like “taked” instead of “took”. This story definitely would’ve done well to receive a good proof-read or two more.

I wish there was a lot more depth for everything in this story. Not just character depth or setting descriptions, I wanted to feel like this story was more than just the general idea for a story. I want to feel the gay and I want to feel the depressed, not just see them plainly stated on a page. It’s like playing mafia where the narrator says nothing but commands like “mafia wake up” instead of playing with a narrator who makes up elaborate stories of action and motives and makes it feel like a game.

- - Final thoughts - -
Well, while it is a bit rocky and far from the most elegantly written story on this site and not even really the best of the series, this story is and will always be a legend. From the funny title, to the humor, to being the spark that started the gay and depressed wildfire, this story is more than meets the eye. I really enjoyed seeing the connections between this story and the sequel by Fresh out the oven, and I hope there are also references in RKrallanor’s continuation of the series. Even though there was not much effort put into this story, the legacy it begun with its simplicity and humor is worth the gracious rating I gave it for me.

I'm so confused, which means I found this funny. I am mildly traumatised form scene 13 however.

amazing

Read all of this like a good CYStian.

Each page is very inconsistent in format, and there are random bits of punctuation at the top of the some of the pages for no reason. Some of the pages are indented strangely and the pacing of sections make no sense. The first set of choices has three options that all share the exact same text but lead to different routes.

It's so stupid, but you can't help but love it. It also has a legacy on this site, so you might as well read it.

Funny, short and gay, exactly what i needed.

Ah the iconic Gay and Depressed story game!

This story is a fixture on this site, simultaneous celebrated and reviled for its strange characterizations, paper thin plot that often times doesn't make sense, and convenient use of a mugger to kill you and end the story. Nevertheless, despite all these flaws, or perhaps because of them, this story has managed to entertain and exasperate readers for 8 years.

In fact, this piece of art has also managed to inspire 2 sequels(hopefully 3 soon!), and even gets referenced in Endmaster's Tales of the basement game(but in that world it's called "gay and undead").

Perhaps the best part of the game is that it's truly written in earnest. Many times, stories are written that are intentionally trying to be bad on purpose, in order to make viewers laugh, they intentionally ape aspects of "so bad it's good" stories, but then these fail and are not only not critically celebrated, they are also not enjoyed by audiences/readers. The earnestness and well-intentiondness of trying to create a legitimate piece of art, and then failing spectacularly and instead creating a piece of comedic entertainment is what elevates these stories to legendary status.

And you can really see the thought queenlatifah tried to put into it, even if she ultimately fails. She wanted us to feel emotional but she skipped the part where she actually tells the story to just present us with scenarios with no context or buildup. She's read good books and watched good movies, and is trying to create the serious mood, but it fails because of incosistencies in pacing, randomness in actions and choice, poor writing, and unintentionally hilarious narrative choices. That unintentionality to me is key, it transforms stories like Gay and Depressed and The Room(by Tommy Wiseau) from merely bad movies/stories to celebrated museum pieces, talked about amongst generations to come. No one will ever forget "It's bullshit. I did not hit her, I did nooooooot, oh hi Mark." and now, no one will forget "You guys see the mugger come back and he shoots you".

Without any explanation or much build up, the main character trips her brother up simply because her crush is eying him and then all of a sudden when you go to get the first aid kit, a burglar comes. And why does ordering from dominoes kill you, but ordering from a random place keeps you alive a bit, does the author have something against chain-pizza restaurants and wants us to support local pizza places????

Time passes in the strangest ways possible, more words are used to describe you waiting for the pizza to arrive than you going to college and then on the cusp of marrying the girl?

What the heck? You should tell us how they got to know each other, maybe give us some time with them. Why on earth should I care about this girl and her soon to be wife if literally 5 seconds ago, they just met?

And the choices are so strange, like the author is saying that you have to choose between marrying your girl or becoming a player, and you decide to be a player because people criticize you? Doesn't make any sense. And if you pick the marriage option, you end up with 3 broken ribs, and after 2 years you guys divorce, and you adopt 4 kids.

You have to actually tell the story through dialogue and action and build it up slowly! Otherwise, I get no reaction reading this. My only reaction is just wondering what the hell I just read. Make us like the character, in fact, just make a character dammnit!

But in terms of meme potential and humor, 8/8. I seriously can't understand any of the choices the author made, and that morbid fascination at watching a train wreck unfold before my very eyes, is what made me read this and choose to make a sequel to this very strangely written story.

Actual rating: 2/8.