PAX Online 2020: When the Past was Around Impressions
PAX Online is going on throughout this week and I was given the wonderful opportunity to try out an upcoming game developed by Toge Productions and Mojiken Studio. You may be familiar with Toge as the devs behind one of my favorite games of this year, Coffee Talk. When the Past was Around is a breathtaking point and click adventure where you solve puzzles and progress through a beautiful and heartbreaking story. A story about love, loss and how someone can move forward from such tragedy. This special build included a couple of chapters in addition to the prologue. Right off the bat you're hit with this somber yet beautiful piano piece that becomes the focal melody for the game. You're in control of a character who is dealing with the loss of her loved one/significant other and you click through each sequence in solving a main puzzle to progress onward.
The sound effects when clicking through each item are spot on to what you'd imagine they'd sound like. The overall hand drawn art style is breathtaking and the music brings me to tears. In a way, this little demo reminded me of my own struggles when coming to terms with my Dad passing a few years back. As the main character, you glimpse over memories through mementos that you and your beloved shared. Being a violinist, you're shown how the main character hopes to take up the hobby so that she has a solid way of remembering him. Each sequence allows you to pan through and discover more objects and scenery to interact with. The puzzles themselves aren't challenging but some did provide me a moment to pause and think about how I would go about solving them.
You can absolutely feel the emotion that the main player feels as she's struggling to move on, but as I mentioned at the top, the music helps bring her back through the sadness she's feeling. The various indoor locations from houses, to cafes and even outside near a park are brought together in a way that really gives you that cozy feeling. Below you can see all the screenshots I took during my playthrough.
When the Past was Around releases on Steam Sept. 22nd 2020 with console versions following shortly after! To learn more about the title, check out the link below:
https://twitter.com/wpwagame
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