Memories of a Forgotten Home

What's good and easy to dissect about this game is that the mapping is interesting and has a bit of a painting vibe to it. The game also employs a few hand drawn images to give individuality to the game, despite using First Seed Material chipsets for the mapping and characters. Some scenes and each character comes with their own drawings, which is definitely a plus for a game this short.

But what manner of game is this? Well, it keeps close to the motif of "remembrance", and all of the game is spent taking in moments that the main character has forgotten about his childhood (some maybe best left forgotten). His wasn't a great experience, but you can see how the idea of a timeline can really skew with one small incident (which I won't spoil here because practically the entire game relies on it). He could've been happy, but instead he faced a much more gritty and adult entrance into the world. As the review title says, I really feel like "a little innocence would've gone a long way" towards making his early years more tolerable, because what was there was really something of a downer.

Because the game is only 15 minutes long, it's hard to really talk more about what it has going for it, but it does something that not a whole lot of games try, which is to go for the gut jab in record time and I feel it succeeds at delivering on it. The only reason I'm not comfortable giving it a higher rating is because - as a game - it doesn't really satisfy. The puzzles are very bland and the real trouble is just maneuvering the house and trying to remember which rooms were where. There's only one part that could possibly give you trouble and it's only because you have to bring an item to a room and the location of the room isn't entirely intuitive. There's also a red herring that plays absolutely no role in the game, which is disappointing but I suppose there was an intended sense of mystery to it.

The protagonist's friends are also a mixed bag (until the ending) because you believe them to be something other than what they end up revealing themselves to be. You expect drama and some serious mind games, but it's just in the moment. I'm not sure how to feel about that, but I suppose what's there works as it is.

Perhaps not memorable, but certainly not forgotten.