I am so, so in LOVE with this game! Literally, a game with many uncompleted mini-stories to solve. Each of these is done in a form of a puzzle, which evolves in such an adoring story. Each person’s story you get to view requires you to solve the slightly perplexing puzzle. I kid, it’s not that difficult, but it can be a little challenging. I found the game to be a bit intriguing to see what you may just find out about these people in the game; these tenants that live in this one large apartment building.
The game is giving us, the player the ability to revive and evolve the stories of these tenants by figuring out the little pieces that make the story continue. There are a few that might feel a bit sad, but many other mixed emotions when you are figuring out the stories of these unique characters. So it may bring on a few different emotional feelings during the past time, but when the stories are completed, they lead to better and improved; happier presents. So as in a present; real-life timeframe in the game, we the player work by solving the stories allowing every tale to blossom and produce the result of what was to happen next in the recent timeframe.
Of course, I can’t help to feel a tad sad or feel some type of different emotion for a few of the stories; past and present events that occur. It’s nothing that would make me feel that this game is awkward, strange, or in any way of being terrible. It’s far from a dreadful game! Except, maybe the poly-like graphics aren’t that great in the past visual experience, which I will get a bit more into next!
These characters are done to be human beings. Nothing strange, just a man or woman. Plain and simple as that. However, I think the look of the characters can appear a bit stranger in shape as they should be. The design isn’t as neat or smooth as the poly-style design in its features. A big reason I feel this way is that the characters; tenants in this apartment have this awkward appearance with the graphics because they could blend in the scenery, as many rooms are crowded with items. Also, they sometimes look stranger in shape because of this design approach; polygraphic design. Longer fingers, arms, or hands made them appear alien-like.
Nevertheless, it’s an original idea and I do still enjoy the one concept of going from a past to a present in this game, changing their appearances and the perspective of the entire world, room style objects, and people. Where you see the black and white; grey being the color of the past events while the present stands out in full color, makes it super easy to decipher each time frame you are working and seeing.
Now for the game, well it does provide something worth playing! It brings the player a little puzzling fun to connect the past and present events together. Now, this is the main purpose and goal of the game. Why I kept mentioning these two styles and the visual appearance of each story. Since, you go from the start of the game, learning ways to maneuver and use each game’s easily mapped out key on the controller to play. From zooming into the rooms, changing and viewing each open room, or closing them and viewing another side. It’s all explained and clearly. Even going from the menu with an album of the photos is done with a cute heart-shaped selector. Sorry, that little piece is just adorable to have added.
Afterward, it’s all about learning to solve the puzzle of the game, well many puzzles are all similar just about connecting one story to the next. So practically, it’s all a bunch of rotating from left to right, searching up and down and even selecting the characters in these different apartment rooms, within the building to play through their stories. Super simple to understand, which I love, and no getting lost when you begin playing, so don’t worry if that ever is a fear. It’s perfect for everyone, anyone wants to open up a can of worm and love these magnificent stories.
In some ways, the game does remind me of a rubrics cube, rotating the boxes; rooms in this apartment to make it match up just right. This way the story can continue to move on and play through. Oh yes, there is something that is quite original with this game’s puzzling design is that it moves from past and present. I know I’ve mentioned this a bunch of times already, but what I didn’t mention is that the photos are also contributing to each past and present part of the puzzle that needs to be created and unlocked to move further through the game. For example, a few past and present images will show up in the album. You as the player must figure out what will make the completion needed to unlock many more stories of the tenants in the building.
Now for the features and parts that didn’t quite fit my enjoyment of the game. Don’t get me wrong, I did think that the game first caught me as a fun way to see play a puzzling story-style venture. However, there were a few issues I stumbled across. One is that the album of past and present shares this interesting puzzle that you need to figure out how one image relates to the next part of the present story. Yet, the problem I came upon is that the album can be quite challenging to know what you need to do next. It isn’t super clear with the grey color images and the colorful ones.
Thankfully for these cameras like illustrated; selectable objects being presented on the rooms that are most important to take a glance at, really help! Plus, I don’t think there is a path that says you need to do things in order, just go as you please, of the ones that are unlocked. So, in my case, I just played the game freely not really utilizing the album for much guidance. I went my own blind-gameplaying method, which I do often in games. Doing this I mean I just begin to rotate, click, select, or choose an object that would be available for me to work with next. That is basically the way I made it work.
The second and last issue arose when some of these designated locations after selecting a character really don’t easily have a clear enough area to place them. Especially, since these lit-up areas are telling you to move them to this specific spot. I still felt it was hard cause the lighted ring can be seen through all objects and if you don’t click the right position being targeted with a light ring, or close enough. I think it can get slightly frustrating, this might just be me, but if you end up playing and keep trying the spot and it wasn’t close enough, I just felt it could be less visible through all buildings, making it easier to detect the location.
Lastly, I felt the entire game and its many stories to be very entertaining, relaxing and doesn’t make for such a complicated game to play. It’s fun to see all the photos being completed and finishing a story to get a whole new, bunch of others to open up and try to solve. I find the game perfect to be called for everyone because it is fun for, well everyone! Oh, by the way, the soundtrack is quite nice and adds this perfect additional pleasure to the game, while sitting back and playing.
