WOE AM I!!!
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"The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone." - Goethe
In Journey of the Broken Circle you control a circle with a dark pixel
for an eye and an open wedge for a mouth. Of course, this makes you look like
Pac-Man, the hungry hero of decades past, but the
similarities end there. This is a game with a message, and from the
first moment to the last of its three-hour journey it never lets us forget it. Your quest is about finding love, and the message is about feeling alone when you're incomplete, and incomplete when you're not alone.
This game, from the Danish-based studio Lovable Hat Cult, has you rolling along a sidescrolling
landscape, stuck to the confines of gravity. By default you can only roll left
or right and jump. As you fill the broken circle's mouth with different
shapes, a.k.a. romantic partners, you add new traversal possibilities. Your first
partner, for instance, is a sticky fir cone, who helps you to climb vertical
surfaces.
The challenge is mostly about platforming your way forward. Different factors
make it tougher, like extreme heat that confuses the circle and inverts the
left/right controls. As a platformer it's got decent gameplay, with responsive
controls and good enough level design that you don't feel confused about what
to do, or where to go.
The intuitive visuals uses few and clear enough colors to make the way forward
apparent. The audio settles for minimalism to help you unwind and take the
journey for what it is. The challenges are physics-based, requiring you to
figure out how to get past certain obstacles, which is often about finding the
right amount of momentum. All-in-all, it should have been a pleasant, albeit
pretty nondescript gaming experience.
Unfortunately, this game is ruined by the narrative, that combines symbolism with writing so apparent it can only be interpreted one way. It's told in an almost
condescending way, as if it was directed towards little kids, but the subject
matter reveals that the audience is really late teenagers or even adults. It
is not appealing, nor touching, nor even slightly affecting in any positive
manner - it is only annoying and incredibly pandering.
Through constant dialogue, monologue and text messages in the environment, the
game never lets you forget: The circle's blank space, a.k.a. its mouth, needs
to be filled. The needy circle needs the love of friendship, and friendship in
love. It won't settle for anything less. It rolls across the landscape, and
sucks up anyone not strong enough to reject its offers to come along.
Some brief acquaintances, like the owl or the fir, have life lessons in store
about existentialism or selfishness or whatever, but the circle doesn't pay
much attention. So... maybe company wasn't so important after all?
Let's not mince words here: As a protagonist, that circle is a constant pain
in the ass, like one of those acquaintances that latches on to you all the
time although you have very little in common. It's like controlling the
Adoring Fan in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Someone that cannot take
"no" for an answer, or understand even the most obvious hints that you wanna
be left alone. In the end you have to spell it out, and the prick accuses you
of being a prick.
Yes, this game really has a deplorable protagonist, and even though it's
intentional, it becomes a stain on the game's journey towards enlightenment.
With such obvious character flaws, both the character arc and end goal is so
predictable, you don't really need to take the journey. As a narrative
experience, it becomes too formulaic and sometimes downright boring. The only
sensation it instilled in me was frustration, because that circle didn't feel
relatable.
Another problem, considering this is a game about the struggle against
loneliness, is that you're not alone very much. New partners abound, and then
leave you a while later, only for a new one to take its place soon thereafter.
And the few moments of solitude you have, the circle is being a nuiscance
about it, whining and moaning, never allowing the player to actually
sympathize with the little twerp.
In these self-depricating segments it's not enough that the circle starts
descending down deep, dark pits; it also starts fantasizing about suicide. And
then a boss appears in the shape of a dark snake of Angst, and starts hunting
the circle down, who quickly needs to escape. How's that for subtlety?
To help it recuperate from situations like that, the circle later finds solace
in the embrace of a piece of moss. Together you roll through some of the game's
most infuriating platform challenges, involving a few unreliable catapulting
phallic plants, that are so imprecise you might get stuck on the same obstacle
for ages. And through it all that circle wallows in self-pity. This is where
the anger kicks in.
What should we take literally, and what should we take figuratively? Is
Journey of the Broken Circle about finding romance, friendship or a business
partner? Does the circle have symbolic casual sex with the moss (the
phallic tentacles on this level suggest it), or do they just hug and converse?
When considering suicide, is the circle standing on the edge of a building or
a cliff? You're free to interpret it any way you like, but
who cares and what bloody difference does it make?
It's hard to read between the lines when the game already has lines between
the lines. It would have been a better experience by just letting the visuals
speak for themselves.
I was surprised to find out that Journey of the Broken Circle won several
awards for its narrative design. Last year I played forma.8, a good little 2D Metroidvania with similar art style, also about a circle,
that got no such accolades. To me, that game was so much better in
communicating loneliness, without using a single word of dialogue. It was all
in the visuals. I just remember how small and insignificant I felt as I
steered the circle through a hostile world, where even the large celestial
bodies looked threatening.
Journey of the Broken Circle is the polar opposite. It proudly claims to be
about these things, but fails to establish the emotional connections behind them. And
consequently, if it wants me to consider the ramifications of a lonely life,
or the problems in finding romantic partners, it does an awful
job at it. I cannot indentify with the hero at all, and its adventures mean
nothing to me. The platforming may be functional and 100 percent average,
but the narrative on top of it bugs me all the way through.
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