Update One Hundred and Forty-Five: 24 March 2018

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I felt a bit trepidatious when I noticed that on some of the branding for Memoranda, it kept including the line ‘inspired by Haruki Murakami’s short stories’. It was nearly the tagline for the game, rather than a footnote near the bottom. This worried me, because it told me that the developers were leaning on Murakami’s name and the work would be too referential to stand on its own, as its own thing.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t too far off the mark.

Memoranda falls into the same trap that the Low Road does - it’s a gorgeous, independent, small-studio-made point and click with a great aesthetic style above all, and a strong, evocative soundtrack.. Then comes character design - a little less incredible but still good. Then voice acting - stiff in places, but okay. Then the animations - I used to beat myself up over how difficult a walk cycle was to animate, but apparently I’m not the only one. And, finally, the story, the characterizations, the main thrusts of the works - bad.

I may have missed Murakami’s short stories, but I’ve read a few of his novels and all of the weirdness, the magical realism and the strange happenstances all happen for a reason. There is a through-line of reality that remains stable, even as other things get more and more warped. There’s a clarity to his storytelling that is completely absent here, and it’s a failing that is incredibly annoying, BECAUSE the callback is placed front and center. It makes me think the dev team just took the trappings of his style and of common themes (though I can’t remember humanimals being one) without understanding how or why it’s so resonant.

And it’s a shame, because I’m part of the prime audience for this kind of game. I love weirdness, I love point n clicks, I love artsy indie shit and literary reference and magical realism - and I want to love this game. But it’s a lovely tarp over a clunky, inelegant machine, and so… I don’t.

Come for the art, stay for moon-moon-moon logic, leave with expectations unfulfilled.

Next up:

See you soon!