Broken Pieces Review - To the Lighthouse

Broken Pieces is the debut of a French studio that, with the help of five people, released a game presented as a psychological thriller from an online game developer Friv2Online. According to the trailers, "Wreckage" was not compared with anything. And from Silent Hill, and from Syberia, and even traces of Life is Strange were found.

Elisa, a woman in her 30s, and her husband Pierre, who is a fan of music and instruments, heard about the town of Saint-Egzil on TV.

Love at first sight, a spark in the heart - and they decided to move closer to the sea. We bought a large, cozy, but shabby house with time and sea salt. He is our stronghold until the end of the game. The French region of Brittany served as the prototype of Saint-Egzil.

Happiness and intoxicating freedom did not last long. Something is lurking in the waters of the region. A Lovecraftian ancient horror, a scientifically explainable anomaly, a UFO base, or something else - in general, a signal emanating from the bottom interested competent persons and a group of sectarians. As the teaching of the leader says, there is an ancient deity in the waters, and the time has come to pay the bills for your sins. Aggressive-minded citizens began to spoil city property, desecrate graves and arrange mystical rituals.

And so, in the spring of 1993, the military carried out an operation, after which everything changed. The plot begins with Eliza's dream and awakening. We walk around the house, go out into the street - and there is no one there. The heroine found herself in a kind of bubble, closed in time and space. It's always April 3rd, and only minor things change from day to day. For example, fluorescent mushrooms grow and shrimp appear in fishing nets.

Rest - strictly from eight in the evening to eight in the morning, otherwise the heroine will be captured by ghosts. There are many more of them at night, and they cannot enter the house of Eliza and Pierre. Therefore, for a woman, night time is now her favorite. If you put the found items for crafting cartridges into the chest, then the protagonist will be engaged in the manufacture of high-quality ammunition. With the help of a gun, you have to fight these dark blobs of energy that look like people.

Elise also spends the night reviewing the documentation needed to progress through the story, jotting down key reminders in a notepad called "Clues" and setting goals in the corresponding section. But much more interesting is the player that accompanies the heroine and, along with a notepad and a pistol, is the main subject. She records dreams, memories and important information on cassettes. The goal is to find out what really happened and what to do next.

The player is the main source of interaction with that world, temporarily or untimely gone. Music by Pierre, found audio recordings of sectarians and ordinary citizens, spy data - in Broken Pieces, the former Saint-Egzil is projected onto compact cassettes. More details are missing about the life of people, when the streets were still teeming with life, and not ghosts from the air.

The town looks cozy and cute. Given the small studio and the debut factor, I don’t want to scold for flaws. The picture pleases the eye most of the time, if you do not peer into the distance, and the restrained gamma and lighting soothe and relax. At the same time, tension emanates from the empty Saint-Egzil.

Of course, this is not a thriller, suspense occurs just a couple of times - depending on the sensitivity of the player's nervous system. But the background melancholy of the deserted province, the sound of the surf, seagulls and sound accompaniment drive into a kind of semi-trance and provoke a feeling of loneliness.

The plot develops slowly, we still have a quest. Problem solving alternates with cinematic clips. The plot puzzles are easy, the game literally leads by the hand, Eliza carefully forms the goals and does not forget to replenish the hints. At the same time, sometimes you have to run around, think a little and shuffle inventory. For some reason, it didn't occur to the heroine to take a backpack or find it in a deserted city. You have to wander back and forth or craft less ammo.

A number of difficult puzzles are assigned to additional tasks. The developers have chosen the right approach without cluttering up the main storyline.

The game is chamber, for research we are given small sections of the city, between which the heroine moves somewhere, outside the loading screens. But the locations are diverse and tell about the history of the city. The quintessence is the church, majestic, large and defamed. Constantly have to interact with various mechanisms. Either lower the bridge, then find the screw, then return the electricity.

Broken Pics is essentially about finding paths and opening doors. We are like in a labyrinth, in which, in the course of passing, we break through more and more arches that connect space with each other. Eliza can summon storms, which always helps, as in the case of creating a crossing from chopped wood.

We look at the world through the eyes of Eliza through a fixed camera, which received two views. Between them constantly have to switch, so as not to miss the next door. Alternate mode - first person view, but it is static, you can not move. And cinematic black bars appear on the screen.

Before the start, the game asks whether to go through as intended by the developers or choose a simplified battle mode. The essence of this proposal becomes clear later, but the deed is done, nothing can be changed. Ghost battles are disgusting and annoying, at least when playing with a keyboard and mouse, although the developers again recommend using a gamepad. It is very interesting how such an idea came to someone's mind, given the Broken Pieces genre.

You can't craft a lot of rounds, and Eliza dodges like a cripple, although she seems to be a young and agile woman. She also practices in the yard. As a result, towards the end of the game, when the fights become more fierce, poorly drawn spirits can seriously hurt. Eliza's ability to drive enemies away from herself saves a little. Weapons, hits, and everything like that, which is called an impact, of course, is not felt, this is out of the question. Absolutely superfluous and annoying mechanics.

Restores Elise's health either by sleeping or by drinking a drink from the refrigerator. And the benches scattered throughout the city, along with the bed, make it possible to survive, as well as rest for a couple of hours.

The passage ends abruptly, despite the fulfillment of the general task. The ending is so clumsy that it knocks you down with its spontaneity and leaves understatement. The effect of surprise is revealed through the excessive simplicity of the final episode.

Broken Pieces comes out on time. Exploring coastal Brittany in autumn is like taking a short trip filled with secrets, beautiful architecture and simple mysteries.