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Fragments of Tea

Fragments of Memories review by JosephSeraph

Summary:

Fragments of Memories is a small game made for the Swap in the Middle with You event, made in the span of 2 weeks. You play as 2 friends delving inside the Lady's mind, in order to lift a curse.

It is a small game that can be beaten in probably under a hour, a joint effort by Ocean and Frogge.

The premise is simple, but set up with a lot of potential. Does the game hold up? Let's analyze section by section.

Characters: 4/5
This is a game about characters, that's for sure. In under an hour it paints a very quirky personality for both protagonists, having a very interesting dynamic between both. The other characters felt flat, perhaps due to the very short nature of the game -- this is forgivable as the time spent with both protagonists is great!

Writing: 3/5
Now I'm not the best writer in the world, but the writing in this game is a mixed bag with very high and very low points. The body of text is the interaction between both protagonists, that can range from genuinely funny and amusing to overly expository and stiff, mostly due to some jokes going for 1-2 phrases more than they should. Cutscenes are not particularily interesting either, although not bad.

Story: 2.5/5
For me this was the lowest point of the game -- great characters and a fantastic premise only to fall apart somewhat on its execution close to the end and in exploring the concept of diving on someone's mind from beginning to end.
The game attempts to put some elements of horror inside, but they felt shoehorned in instead of being integral part of the narrative, perhaps due to lack of communication between both devs (I think thats the intention of the event anyway), but in a setting where the players literally delve into someone's mind, the implications that that would have were woefully underexplored. I would like to see this concept revisited by either of the devs, and I would love to see the horror aspect play a more prominent, fleshed out metaphorical role of the character's mind, rather than just editing blood on top of graphics (that's like the definition of non-horror)

Graphics: 4.5/5
Fantastic, as usual for everything Ocean. In particular I think these might have been his best monster designs up to now and I would TOTALLY buy them if they were on sale on some game asset shop because GOD these babies were BEAUTIFUL. Tilesets as always were also very characteristic and full of personality, they had a story to tell -- something I personally always try to reach with my own art but hardly get to.
My only complaint in this area is lack of polish in some minor stuff like character animations in battle (the sword swiping is too slow, the character sprites look a bit rough and they often shift one pixel up or to the sides when changing directions, etc.)
Also I did quite a few of the battle animations used in this game lol they were mostly used well and as intended, save a few (the revive spell in particular) buuut time constraints and animations are a pain to setup. Anyway it's always a pleasure to see my work being used as such! ~ <3

Sound: 5/5
Pretty great all around, the soundtrack hits home and sets the mood to the whole game -- i listened to it quite a bit while working too. Sound effects are used quite well as well.

note: There are quite a bit of polish issues, most of them non-harmful, as of version 1.5. Skill descriptions that don't match up mostly, the status healing spell targets the enemy, etc.


Verdict:
3.5/5 -- Worth checking out!!! Would have been a 4 had the story had been better explored, and a 4.5 or even 5 if it had had a bit more polish overall as well as the story overwork. Fantastic, unexpected collaboration!

And have some fanart by yours truly! These two are really great characters and i absolutely loved the ending ~ <3

Posts

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Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
I'm really glad you enjoyed it Jo!!! Again, your fanart is the most adorable thing ever and you made some solid points. The story is also my least favorite aspect mainly because I had a few hours left and I was rushing to try to get it done. So I just threw in the very trope-y ending which also had some really weird dialogue because I didn't proofread and also it made no sense??? Anyway we (or rather, Ocean) have been working on an update which will hopefully fix the issues you mentioned!

Again, thanks for taking the time to review the game and drawing that awesome piece of fanart! You're the best! :D
You're most welcome! I surely did enjoy very much and I'm eager for more things from both of you in the future : D <3
Eager for the next version of this game too! Maybe I'll be able to raise the score :D
Ocean
Resident foodmonster
11991
I will remedy all the issues by adding 300% more frogs

But yeah it's definitely stuff that we can take into account, and I think a lot of the issues were that we weren't allowed to communicate and the little amount of time, I felt bad that Frogge had to do a lot because I wasn't able to get much in! :D Thanks for the review!
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