Review: Trauma (PC)
“We need a better word than video game.”
This is a statement I’ve heard a lot in the last few years. With the expansion of the medium, many have felt that the term unfairly describes certain forms of interactive entertainment. While I don’t necessarily agree, Trauma is the type of game that sparks this kind of discussion.
In Trauma, you explore the dreams of a young woman who was recently hospitalized after being in a car accident. There are four dreams to explore that make up the entirety of the game.
Let me just get this out of the way right now. Trauma can be completed in about fifteen minutes. In fact, I likely completed the first level in about a minute. But that doesn’t mean you will have explored all that the game has to offer in that time.
The first thing you’ll notice in Trauma is its unique visual style. Navigating the dreams is done through photographs. As you click around the environment, different photos will be displayed, giving you the illusion that you’re moving through the environment. You can also draw various lines with the mouse to quickly turn around.
It’s a bit similar, in perspective at least, to Myst. But unlike Myst, you won’t be wracking your brain trying to solve puzzles. The hardest part of Trauma is finding everywhere there is to go, due to the strange way you navigate the dreams. Since some locations require you to make use of the line-drawing controls instead of clicking on what’s visible, it can be easy to miss an explorable section.
As you move through the dreams, the woman narrates. But she never bogs you down with very much dialogue. Her words are few, but they’re usually interesting. She speaks both of the dreams and of her life. The latter is triggered by finding photos strewn about the dreams.
The most surreal moments come in the elements that mix in CG, usually when ending a dream. A building peeling like a banana, a wall shrinking down a drain. These are moments that really shine. If only there weren’t so few of them.
Completing the stages with their true ending will grant you a brief scene in the hospital. There are also a few alternate endings to the dreams, but they don’t give you any more hospital scenes. Collecting photographs within each stage would be great, but many of them are simply basic controls (reused on every stage) or unnecessary hints for alternate endings in other stages. Only a small portion of the collectable photos lead to a brief but interesting look into the life of the woman.
Trauma is a very minimalist game. There’s not much there, but it’s certainly compelling. Due to the game’s brevity the downloadable version is a tough sell, but luckily you can play a free, in-browser version that’s almost identical.
This review is based on the downloadable version of Trauma provided by its creator Krystian Majewski. Trauma can be purchased through Steam or played in-browser at TruamaGame.com.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 15th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under Indie Games, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 15th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I think the frustrating part of this game is that I am completely drawn in by what is there and I want more. I’m not the kind of player that needs every little aspect of the story explained in detail. In fact, that can hurt a story when it involves strangeness like this. I just want enough to be able to make some educated guesses as to what is going on in these dreams.
August 15th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
linthuslyth says:Did you hear about this game in the Monster Hunter Podcast wherein one of the hosts is Krystian Majewski, the creator of this game?
And if you want a game with strange dreams, sparse explanation but more disturbing(and made in RPG Maker 2003) then search for Yume Nikki!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki
August 15th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:@linthuslyth
Kind of. I didn’t hear about it on their podcast (I’ve only listened a few times), but I followed Krystian on twitter originally because of his podcast and saw him post about it on there.