We live in an era in which if you have real talent and really persevere in it, there are many options to see your dreams reflected. To this conclusion came in 2009 the Iranian engineer Sahand Saedi, after checking after playing Machinarium that it was possible to make a quality video game with a team of only 3 or 4 people. As a confessed lover of graphic adventures in general,
SHADOW TACTICS: BLADES OF THE SHOGUN
especially the works of LucasArts, he decided to embark on the project of creating his own game within that genre. During the brainstorm from which the development of Memoranda would depart, it turned out that both Saedi and the other component of the
team at that time were reading a book by the world-famous writer Haruki Murakami (Kyoto 1949). Both decided that Murakami’s particular universe would
be the perfect setting for his graphic adventure. Shortly after starting the project, Saedi saw his partner leave the development of the title, before which he reassembled forming the Bit ByterZ studio, based in Vacouver, Canada. During practically all the development
of Memoranda this study was only formed by 4 people, an artist for the visual section, a programmer and a composer for music, together with Saedi himself.
Throughout 3 years the Bit ByterZ studio put all their passion and love for the development of Memoranda came to fruition. In order to give a definitive boost of quality and round off the title, they decided to carry out a financing campaign through Kickstarter, from October 6,
2015 to November 15 of the same year, in which the marked economic objective was widely exceeded. During that period they caught the attention of the distributor Digital Dragon, which has finally been responsible for the launch of the game. Although this launch
was initially scheduled for the 3 months following the conclusion of the successful Kickstarter, finally Bit ByterZ have finally spent just over a year to polish, improve and extend the title.
After all these avatars, we have available Memoranda in the usual download platforms, Steam and GOG, for PC, Mac and Linux. Among its kindnesses,
an excellent staging that captures in a fantastic way a peculiar universe inspired by the literary work of Murakami, and a tremendously fresh and personal visual section. On the other hand, presents a very high challenge,
with a level of difficulty that places it among the most difficult graphic adventures launched in recent years, offering a challenge of real substance that may be
too uphill to less experienced players in the genre , and that will even take the most seasoned adventurers out of their boxes on many occasions.
The everyday of the supernatural
Surrealism, fantastic realism. They are two of the most used terms when referring to the work of the great Murakami. In his novels, the fantastic, absurd and out of place is fused in a natural way with realistic settings, in a combination between the real
and the oneiric tremendously effective. The supernatural is something inherent to the everyday within the a priori realistic universes of the withdrawn Japanese writer. The great triumph of Memoranda is how well it shows on screen this peculiar atmosphere so
unusual until now in the world of videogames. Collecting the inspiration to weave their particular world from 20 stories by Murakami (including
“Tokyo blues”, “Chronicle of the bird that winds the world” or “Kafka on the shore), Memoranda offers us a surprising universe where a multitude of fantastic discoveries
await us around every corner. From an elephant that wishes to become human and is hidden in a hut together with an obsessed spaghetti, to the ghost
of a peculiar fighter of the Second World War anchored in the world of the living, passing by a cat dressed as an opera singer , the magic of Memoranda seems never to end in a host of shocking and peculiar situations.
The plot of the game revolves around the concept of loss. Our protagonist is a twenty-year-old girl who has lost her name. It is not a case of memory loss, because it is only his name that he can not remember. In order to recover it, it will have to help the diverse cast of
characters that will come across in their adventure to recover the things that they themselves have lost, since the loss, both of tangible and ethereal elements, is the common link between the peculiar inhabitants of this magical world.
The story traces a fine line between the real and the oneiric, something that, as has already been mentioned, is habitual in Murakami’s work, and it flows through it, passing it from one side to the other in a way that constantly surprises.
It always suggests more than counts, and leaves many loose ends to the free interpretation of the player, so that there are many possible messages that we can take out of the adventure. Unfortunately, the story does not go too deep into the events it tells or the
characters that star, and at times it’s hard to keep up. Despite this, the peculiar, surprising and varied of what it offers us on the screen prompts the player to move forward.
Traditional graphic adventure, difficult as few
On a playable level, Memoranda is a classic graphic adventure in the vein of what you would expect when your alma mater never tires of mentioning Day of the tentacle as one of your favorite titles and main inspiration. We must go through the game scenarios collecting and
using objects to solve the puzzles that we find, as well as having conversations with the characters that populate this dream world to obtain the necessary information to advance the plot.
