Platforms: OSX, PC, LINUX
There's a looming sense of effort in Trauma. Not the good kind. The strained kind: “Come on guys. We've got to be evocative. We've just got to. Otherwise what will happen? I don't know. Jeez guys. Jeez.” It's not appealing when a game shamelessly begs for the “art” prefix. And it's even worse when a game conducts such begging by using touchstones lifted near-entirely from other media. So much potential rests in interactivity and player choice. Why move the story forward in a little movie? Why not just make a short film at that point? Why not just wear a scarf indoors and write an indy song and accompany yourself on the autoharp?
With Trauma, it’s the photography. Trauma plays like Google Street View: The Game. Each level is constructed from a series of photographs stitched together, and you click an adjacent area of the screen to pan over to a new view. Initially, this struck me as an economical level creation technique for an independent studio. I’ll mention now that in the game you are making your way through the voice-overed dreams of a car crash recoverer. It kind of feels - especially if you squint - like the half-agency you have when you are dreaming. But, very quickly it just gets cumbersome, as cumbersome as navigating down a googlefied Dunedin road.
As a game I'm afraid Trauma fails. You're effectively playing through one of those Eye Spy books looking for old-style Polaroids that have been clumsily photoshopped into the environment. The girl will reveal, in delicate soliloquy, something or other about her past whenever you stumble upon something. Occasionally you will draw symbols on the screen with the mouse to interact in a more specific way. But that's a relatively small part of the game compared to the Polaroid hunting. The point is that the game never requires thought or decision making. Everything about it, from the weirdly overexposed blurred people in the photos, to the close up shots of a generic girl-face in the cutscenes, are forever out of reach of your control.
2/5
Trauma
