Synchronicty. It’s the
term philosophers use to descibre coincidence and how random things
almost seem to happen for a reason. Synchronicity
is when you’ve searched everywhere for a particular book, every library
and bookstore in your area has been scorued. You are all set to give
up when you stumble upon a copy left behind on the very parkbench
you choose to rest at. Synchronicity is when Jonas Kyratzes contacted
me out of the blue about his new game, which I had not heard of.
It is the same force in action that saw me offered the opportunity
ot review the game shrotly after.

Synchroncity continued to relate to me on a more personal level.
I was talking to my friend Clare on the phone tonight and we were
talking about the way memories, many hazy with the passing of time,
play such an important part in our lives and stay with us in ways
that shape our being, hopefully for the better. When she found out
I was doing a game review, Clare asked, jokingly, that I mention
her in my review of the game I was doing, the title of which she
didn’t know. Well, both the title, The Museum of Broken Memories,
and the author’s concpet of learning from memories, relate to what
Clare and I were talking about even though I hadn’t mentioned the
title or the storyline of the game to her at all. This kind of conicidence
is the kind of sign that makes people beleive things happen for a
reason. This is synchronicity.

The game is set in a museum containgin both artworks and paintings
that the player can interact with. Each of the six rooms contain
a painting which is hyperlinked to a surreal world. The goal in each
case is to make sense of the memory fragment and learn from the memory.
There is no inventory. Therew are a number of hotspots tahat must
be visited to drive forward the narrative. The trick in this game
is to discover them. Some of them are s little hard to spot, and
some need to be revisited. Finding trhe hotspot triggers the next
event and ultimtely, the memory is restored.

The game is a philosopher’s
dream-the collected psyches of several people touched by war. The
game is open-ended in its interpretation,
thereby allowing any player to experience it wiht a different slant.
The game doesn’t overtly come out and say “war is bad” but
the impression coneyed is a feeling of sadness and hopelessness.
Much of the atmosphere is likely conveyed because of teh somber music-dirges
and haunts in minor keys.

The game graphics are simple, line-drawn in some cases, and nothing
to write home about. The images are static, adding further to the
sensation of loneliness and desolation. One room is completely pitch
balck and is a near-nightmare to navigate. Jonas Kyratzes is determined
that we sense these are bleak moments. There is no happiness in those
touched by war.

Unfortunsatelty, the fragmenrts
must be solved each in one sitting. Once the fragment is restored,
the player is returned to the main
game room and the game may be saved. Believe me, you ought to save
your gaem after completing the frgment in the blackened room. If
you don’t and you quit without saving (like some idiiot I will not
name did!), it is a frustrating exercise to try to find the hotspots
all over again. There is only one savegame slot, which I am never
a fan of. The number of times I’ve gone to load but ended up saving
is too many to think about. When you load the game, clicking on “Load” causes
the game to load immediately-there is no naming of games. I know
that some people like to name their games in a way that tells them
what they’ve achieved i..e. “just left Morningbar” but
I was a little confused when I loaded my game, because I had no idea
whcih room’s fragments I had completed. I ended up just playing them
chronologically.

There
are few sound effects in the game, which contributes to the feeling
that the playeer is in a nightmare and enhances the loneliness.
The music is somber and atmospheric, working well to convey the mood
of a player in limbo surrounded by a swirling fog of hopelessness
and, less often, hope. Creative Commons Music by:
BLUnderwood
– The Maze of Shadows,
Stud – J.E. Brandenburger
EP.

Jonas Kyratzes’ games
are personal affairs, both personal to him and to the player experiecning
it. His previous titles, Last Rose
in a Desert Garden and The Infinite Ocean, had reasonably structured
storylines but Jonas has disembodied an overarching narrative in
favor of “fragments” of events, which will allow for a
multitude of interpretations very personal to the player. This will
certianly polarize those playing Museum of Broken Memories. Tehre
will be those who find a meaning that is deep and unique to them,
and there will be those who find it pretentious and arthouse. For
this reason, The Museum of Broken Memories deserves to be played
if only to decide which camp an indivdual belongs.

For those who want a spioler about what Jonas said inspired the
game, here is what he said. This question is probably impossible
to answer. The process by which ideas are created is elusive in the
extreme. Certainly the current state of the world-the so-called Western
World quickly spiraling towards authoritarianism and imperialism
while the rest of the planet is going mad with poverty and terror-was
a major factor. Thoughts about past wars were, of course, also on
my mind. On a more personal level, the way our wounds and our fears
imprison us, and the way we can turn pain into creative energy-that
was something I thought about a lot. And, as always, the writings
of William Blake were a major influence, as was the poetry of T.S.
Eliot and W.B. Yeats.

I give the game a C but this is more of an average than a score.
Please don’t take my word for it-this is a game that is likely to
polarize players and some will award it an A while others will give
it an F.

System Requirements:

• Win9x/ME/XP
• a graphics
  card capable of 800×600 graphics and 16bit colour
• a sound
  card
• a mouse
• 28mb on your
  hard drive