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Someone Lost and Forgot the Game

  • Liberty
  • 02/08/2019 04:56 AM
  • 692 views
Lost and Forgotten was created for the IGMC 2017. I'll admit that I never got to play this one as a judge that year, probably since it was in another judge's bunch, but I can certainly see why it didn't make it through to the next level.

Presentation wise, the game is quite pretty. The graphics are all custom and use only four colours. The details are simplistic, using two-tone shading and the colour choices are quite nice and complement each other and the melancholy tone of the game.

The sound is very nicely done, especially the music which adds a lot to the atmosphere and feel of forlorn emptiness. There were a lot of great choices made for this aspect of the game.

One problem, however, and this was the main issue, was the writing itself. There were a lot of nice bits to it, ideas that were implemented such as XXX standing in place of forgotten names or the line about wanting to save 'her' instead of a save option, but ultimately the nuance of the game and the themes it touches on needed to be handled by someone with a better grasp of the English language to fully communicate them adequately. It's unfortunate, but the writing came off disjointed and as that was the main aspect of the whole game, it really dragged the score down.

Gameplay was very much a case of walk and interact. There were no puzzles, no battles... nothing to really do except watch a scene, move to the next point, maybe read a bookshelf and watch another scene. The player has no real consequence in the lives of the characters at all.

There was a save menu, which was nice, in that it didn't allow you to save but instead said something like "The only thing I want to save is her". I thought it was a poetic touch and really nice. It's honestly my favourite thing in the game.

The one choice you could make was basically "Stay here in this room with nothing in it or continue the game story".

The game isn't bad, it just isn't much of a game. The presentation (bar the writing issues) is pretty nice and there's a lot of poetic ideas floating around. It just needed a few play-testers and maybe a puzzle or two to make it more interesting. As it stands, it's a good way to kill 5 minutes.