Fragments of Him by Aceria 2013-05-02T16:35:00
Interesting gameplay, I enjoyed this more than Dear Esther because it was actually me that progressed the story, rather than just storytelling with a pretty background.
During play I felt connected to the main character. Now I may be biased here, the voice-actor is my favourite lecturer, I like his voice and I recognised it as his and so through parasocial relationship I (am likely to) like the character. Worse: The rest of the team also consists of friends. However, I like to think that I can be unbiased, and that the game is objectively good.
If you haven’t yet, please play the game first! Or I might spoil some things.
The idea that one character did have a colour while the rest of the world was grey (Or fading yellow) was a nice way of putting the character in perspective within that world. It took away the idea it was a god-game, though did cause me short lapses of "Am I having an outer body experience?" It made me more familiar with what sort of person we were dealing with. It might sound odd, but it goes a long way.
I like how the main character was a male in grief (Willing to 'de-emasculate' the player) and how he was mourning about another male. I think it would had detracted from the experience if the main character was female (As being more emotional by stereotype), or the lost relationship was female (In line with saving a princess, she is a victim, he must grow in order to save her memory), it might had felt clichéd in my opinion, and it caught me by surprise how by the end of level 1 it was mentioned it was a "He". There was no big buildup. It was a he. No emphasis. That was great.
I noticed during level 3 that the character seems to go through the five stages of grief, with exception to bargaining. It would have been nice if each step had its own level, but this adaption makes it more organic, rather than forced and worse: predictable.
I noticed this during level 3, because I couldn't find the frame in the trash-bin and the books behind the bookcase. It made me feel clever when I did find them because it required me to look more closely to find them, but it was also a powerful use of environmental storytelling. It told me that either the character threw the books away and they landed there after his grief, or the books just fell off by accident. The frame however was not as easy to mistake for accident, and felt like it had already been thrown with the rubbish prior to the current visit. It felt clever, maybe a bit off with the difficulty of the rest of the game, but good.
During my first playthrough I thought the sofa in the living room was a new item during level 4. I got the feeling it was new and that the character got it after he accepted the passing of his loved one as a way to enjoy his afternoons with a wineglass next to it to read the books that used to be read to him. I thought it was a nice way to display growth, but unfortunately on a second playthrough I discovered it was already there. I’d love to see it removed during level 2, but it may also play in against the whole idea that he doesn’t need anything new in his world because the old things, and the memories attached to them, are a part of him.
Great work!