This game was built on a unique platform that was, what I felt an interactive story, and not a game with a story. This isn’t the usual game where you are set out to complete quests and collect gold coins and then buy things, no. This is a somewhat emotional story that makes you act out the story page by page while it is narrated to you while you complete the actions.
This story is created and developed by a company called sassybot. This game is has the potential to really put an emotional twist on your heart, with deep meaning and changes that make you re-think your own life and how quickly something can change. The story is portrayed in a 3rd person narrative style where you play the story is ready out when you complete the actions, This story is viewed from a few peoples perspectives, the story is about a university student who left his lover Harry one morning in his apartment fast asleep and went about doing his normal activities then went out for a drive and never returned so the story is about people reflecting on his life, and the fragment memories they have of him, the story progresses with his age, with his grandma starting the story off recreating the memories she had of him when he was a kid, slowly growing up over the years, through Christmas’s and other holidays. Each person puts their own part of his life to add to the story. Building up the story and piecing the memories together.
This game has the potential to be so great. However something I found is that they over emphasised the emotion, like trying too hard. The colours are extremely bland and the music is too dramatic, I understand that it is emotional loosing someone close to you, however for a stronger sense of emotion, the feelings need to go up and down, make you laugh and make you cry, well at least for me personally. This was a really sad story that had me intrigued however after about 40 minutes of gameplay I began to get over it as it was the same sadness throughout. There was very little change. Along with the very limited colour pallet which will eventually add to the blandness of the game.
The movement of the player and the other characters is really annoying, as you have to click on someone to move them, they move and you walk, and it feels like a day and an age to get anywhere, also the distance to click on the object and/or person feels inconsistent and annoying. The distances the characters move is just short enough for you to walk fast then bump into them almost immediately.
The detail choices are also very strange. They have chosen to do more detail on the garden hose rather than the grandma’s face, even though she has more of an important role in the main story and you will also see her a lot more than a garden hose on the wall. I chose the garden hose because it stuck out with detail even though I didn’t even have to use it once. The music is incredibly calming and crystal clear. However, it is the same 6 piano keys over and over and over, after around an hour of playing it gets a little annoying.
This is an interesting game that has a very strong potential, however for me personally they need to create more happiness which will counter balance the sadness and add different styles of music and laughter or something to add to the atmosphere. Sassybot also needs to decide what they are going to add detail on to. It’s great to see developers moving onto new genres of games and story variations. However with some work this game could be incredible, however for now I would give this game a 4/10.
Thanks to Sassybot for allowing us to play this game!