Small and very touching games are rare in the indie scene. Some time ago I talked about a project about love and relationships between a Chinese woman and a Syrian refugee in the game Florence, as well as a space saga saturated with loneliness – Still there… Today it’s turn for development from a designer from Indonesia Brigitte Rena – When The Past Was Around… Before us is the story of a violinist girl, Eda, who falls in love with the bizarre musician Filin, but their relationship, full of warmth and piercing happiness, ends with a slowly approaching tragedy. The game takes you through Eda’s early years, her search for herself and that very bright and dizzying love that is the dream of any girl.
In When The Past Was Around, players will visit various stretches of Eda’s memories and come to terms with injustice and loss. Using pastel colors and soft palettes, Rena achieves a dreamlike atmosphere, where reality and fiction are blurred in a series of small screens with interactive objects and simple puzzles.
As the game progresses, the developers offer to collect fragments of riddles, feed the birds and make tea. At other times, the heroine decorates the castles in the sand with flags, erases a terry scarf for her beloved Owl, or looks for a clue to the next combination lock in a simple task.
The world of the game is dominated by a minor, general slowness and meditative immersion. At the same time, When The Past Was Around is always ready to offer you small tips with highlighted objects or advise you to look for an answer in an already passed location. Traditional search and use of items is done in the most intuitive way.
In addition to Briggita Rena’s very pleasant visual style with subtle drawings and cute characters that look like they came from greeting cards, Mojiken perfectly enhances the atmosphere with classical music, which seems to complement the story of the two musicians.
