"Hana Feels" is a hypertext interactive fiction with one simple objective; to help nineteen year old Hana through a crisis. The player is led through the narrative by interacting with Hana as one of four characters who are related to her life, but Hana, like any teenage girl, is reactive. The user is occasionally forced to choose which messages the characters send to Hana, and she reacts differently depending on their answer. They soon learn that there is something that’s bothering Hana, and the aim of the game is to lend an ear to her as she comes to terms with it. There are a handful of conversational rounds that the user must complete to reach the end of the narrative, and after a conversation is finished, a glimpse of Hana’s journal appears on the screen in which a reflection of her mood and thoughts is presented to the user. The characters are related to her in different ways, and the degrees to which their words influence her actions vary. Three unique endings can be triggered based on which answers the player chooses. Despite the varying endings that the player can get, the game focuses on spreading awareness about mental health crises by helping the user experience and understand them. Even from the first choice which is presented to the user when they’re playing as Will, they feel pressure to say the right thing. The game constantly pushes this pressure onto the user, reminding them that their words matter greatly to Hana.
"Hana Feels" was inspired by Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest and was made in Twine 2.0. The platform’s ability to create many diverse branching pathways, or different choices for the user to pick in conversation, provides the user with a chance to direct the conversation in their own way. The conversational format of the text allows the user to better understand Hana and encourages users to self-reflect after they make a certain choice about how to treat Hana. In a nutshell, the game asks the user to do only one thing; truly listen to Hana. By doing so, they are offered the opportunity to make deductions about how their words can affect other people’s feelings and actions.
This entry was written for the class ENGL 693: Digital Literature, taught by Professor Melinda White in spring 2025, at the University of New Hampshire.