![]() These would be minor gripes if the activities in the game were engaging, or felt like they had an important part to play in the overall storytelling – but they don’t. I would push the joystick, expecting her to move forward, only to be jolted out of the experience when the cursor sped across the screen, while she remained frustratingly still. The small reticle can be easy to lose track of on screen, and it’s often unresponsive, taking multiple button presses and minor readjustments to hit the object you want to activate.Īt times, the camera comes to rest on Miriam in a way that made me think that things were about to be shaken up by allowing a full embodiment of her. It’s a simple interaction, but terribly ineffective at keeping you connected to the story. To advance the story, you use a tiny pin-point cursor to interact with objects, limited to either a click, or a click-and-drag. ![]() Image: Cloisters Interactive / Annapurna Interactive The interactive elements maintain this sense of calm, and consist of straightforward point-and-click mechanics – but that’s where the appeal starts to wear off. The game’s effective use of style, colour, sound effects, and an original vocal soundtrack are all incredibly pleasing to the senses, and these elements work in harmony to create a relaxed atmosphere that suits the game’s direction. This decision helps to achieve narrative clarity, but it’s also a captivating visual.Īesthetics are the main strength of A Memoir Blue. The game uses a combination of 2D hand-drawn and 3D rendered graphics, with the contrast between them serving to delineate the past from the present – 2D being Miriam’s childhood and 3D being the present-day. Water serves as a vessel for the story both reflecting her swimming career and symbolising the fluidity of human memory. The combination of a lacklustre narrative, and an absence of engaging interactivity results in a boring experience that I wanted to like a lot more than I actually did.įrameborder="0" allow="accelerometer autoplay clipboard-write encrypted-media gyroscope picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen>ĭescribed as an interactive poem, A Memoir Blue follows swim champion Miriam as she dives into her childhood memories, and her broken relationship with her mother. Unfortunately, beyond its enticing aesthetic, A Memoir Blue doesn’t deliver. A Memoir Blue, developed by Cloisters Interactive, is a game that dips its toe into this complex pool. Video games are a powerful platform for this because they require players to actively engage with the story that’s being conveyed. Through words or images, we can show others our lived experiences, allowing them to briefly inhibit another life and share its emotions. Most interesting to me is how we can share our memories with others. But if we don’t access memories at all, they can slip away quietly as time passes – only to return in a sudden flash, dredged from the depths by a sensory reaction. ![]() When we reach into the past, what is retrieved can shift and reform. Yet we can’t choose everything that we want to remember – or that we don’t. We can replay them before our mind’s eye in great detail. We carry our memories with us everywhere we go.
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