The
human brain is too limited to comprehend pure reality. (The pure reality
of a dust speck is billions of atoms all interacting with each other.
Can you mentally keep track of all of them at once?) So instead we
make a mental description of our perceptions. That dust speck becomes
the “Tiny Floating Thing Which Makes Other Things Dirty.”
And that might be as deep as our understanding goes.

What happens when the database of perceptions in our brain becomes
scrambled by drugs? We might smell colors or hear motion. What happens
when our brain is damaged by physical trauma?

Trauma
is the story of a young lady who suffers a head injury in a car accident.
We enter her dreams and help her resolve conflicts so as to aid in
her recovery.

The game is a short, simple, but quite clever independent work. It
incorporates no less than three unusual features not normally found
in games.

First, all of the graphics are photographs of the real world. Some
of them have been “photoshopped” to add a dream-like surrealism,
but there is little 3D modeling or artwork. There are also live video
cut scenes.

Second,
the game uses an innovative movement system. As you move your cursor
around the screen, blurred blocks will appear and vanish. These quadrilaterals
represent what will fill your screen should you click on them. You
can see examples of these in the screen shots (one is quite small.
Can you find it?) I really preferred this system to the classic Cursor-Turns-Into-Arrow.
I always knew where I was going and what direction I would be facing.
I never lost my sense of direction.

And finally, you can paint commands on the screen. For example, the
vertical line in the one screen shot is the command to Move Back.

While
the blurred previews appear to help you flow with the dream, the drawn
commands allow you some measure of control. For example, using the
Turn Around command might show you a view which had no blurred path
leading to it. Some commands allow you to interact with the environment.

The game consists of four dreams which can be experienced in any
order. Each dream has a main ending, three alternative endings and
nine photographs to find. Complete a main ending and you are rewarded
with a live video cut scene of the lady and her doctor. Complete an
alternative ending and you will be given some insight into the lady’s
character. The photographs reveal commands and childhood memories.
Solving all four endings for a dream turns on a hint system to help
find the rest of the photos in that dream. Solving all four main endings
gives you the closing video.

And
that is it. Trauma is short and simple, but atmospheric and
addictive. On the one hand, I was able to finish it in just over two
hours of playing time. On the other hand, I never wanted to solve
more than two endings at a sitting (I would them contemplate and absorb
what I had experienced). So it lasted me about as long as a full sized
game. Your mileage may vary.

I will close by saying that the voice acting was excellent and the
price was cheap – a mere $7 on Steam. The game play is innovative,
but the innovation was not a gimmick. It actually enhanced the experience.
This is the work of an independent artist and I could find no fault
with it. If you like adventure games, then this game deserves a place
on your hard drive, the author deserves your support and the game
deserves an “A”.

System Requirements:

PC

• OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7
• Processor: 2.0 GHz Dual Core
• Memory:2 GB RAM
• DirectX®:5.0
• Hard Drive:200 MB HD space

MAC

• OS X version Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3, or later
• Processor: 2.0 GHz Dual Core
• Memory:2 GB RAM
• Hard Drive:200 MB HD space