TRAUMA

TRAUMA came into my possession as part of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle.  TRAUMA is a photographic experience by designer Krystian Majewski, where you explore the mind of a traumatised woman, through point and click scenes with clues to be found..

The first scene, “The Next Hurdle”, is a night-time scene with a teddybear trapped under a large stone weight..

Moving around the environment is rather easy.. point and click on blurry angled pictures, onto items within the frame, or via painting gestures on the screen.. you learn these from some of the Polaroids hidden in the scene.  The photos are rather nice looking, and combined with the easy to operate interface, I find the whole thing more curious and relaxing than a typical puzzle game, which tends towards head-scratching after a while.

The clues are all voiced by the traumatised woman, and while some seem irrelevant to the task of rescuing the teddy, I guessed they would be involved in an alternate ending, or in for one of the other four scenes.  There are a set of Polaroids in each scene too.. either for teaching gestures, giving a clue, or telling us a little bit about the woman’s life.

On my first try through the level, I managed to lift the large stone ball from the teddy, and completed the first ending: “Save the Teddybear”.  There were three more endings, listed under “Discoveries”, but I wasn’t able to get at them straight away..

The second scene is “Following Role Models”, with a task of capturing the ghost.. a man who has been blurred through most of the scene by long exposure photography.  One of the Polaroids had a picture of the storm cloud from the sky in “The Next Hurdle”, linking the centre of the storm to a drain.. and then in “What They Expect”, I was taught a gesture to use on drains.

Using this gesture in “The Next Hurdle” allowed me to find the “Swallow The Skyscraper” ending!

As I’ve achieved an ending for each of the four scenes now, I could consider myself to have completed this game.. however, with so many undiscovered endings, it just doesn’t feel finished yet!

The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle!

The Humble Bundle is a pack of indie games offered at a price set by the individual customer.. literally “pay what you want”.. where the money gets split between the developers, charity and the Humble Bundle site itself.. again as each customer sees fit.

Supporting indies and charity?  I don’t see a downside.. 🙂

This particular offer was headlined by Frozen Synapse, a turn-based strategy game which seems to have rated highly justabout everywhere.  While you could choose to pay just £1 for the game, paying more than the average also nets you some bonus games..

In this case, the bonus pack was the Humble FrozenByte Bundle, including: Trine a puzzle-action game featuring a thief, a wizard and a warrior, action games Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds: Survivor, a pre-order of Splot, a fairytale adventure, and Jack Claw, a prototype game featuring a guy with a rather large claw!

Trauma has since been added to the bundle, and can be downloaded by those who had already paid and redeemed their codes simply by visiting the unique link sent via email.  This one sounds like a different sort of game, described on the site as a “photographic experience” in the mind of a traumatized young woman.. I’m half-expecting something on the lines of Korsakovia, but we’ll see! 🙂