Wash away the Quarantine Blues

Being an avid gamer of all games on a larger scale, it is rare I sit down with something smaller and usually something that could be finished over a weekend if not in one sitting. A Fold Apart is one of those games. The game itself tells a story of a couple who are in a long-distance relationship and grow further apart as the game progresses with you the player piecing together the story and seeing both lovers side of the story.

The story is meaningful albeit rather simple but anyone who has been in this situation can relate to. Even with everything happening in the world currently, it will easily pull at peoples heartstrings either way.

The game itself has a few obvious design choices with a brilliant puzzle aspect which puts the game perfectly together. There is a blue and orange colour scheme going on which compliments each characters way of life, the blue represents the character working in a big city, the cold night and being away from the sun and nature itself while the orange represents the character working out in the country in the bask of sunlight and blending in with nature. The game starts off by introducing the characters and moving them from one sheet of paper to the next while they communicate by text message which essentially tells you the story and also allows you to respond to these.

The gameplay consists of the player folding a sheet of paper represented on the screen with each character and folding/flipping the paper to allow the character to reach the next part of the environment. For me, it took a bit of getting used to how the gameplay works but once you know how it is a real pleasure to work with, also the tutorials are very well explained. As the game progresses so do the puzzles and ways in which you can interact with the paper such as folding diagonally. The puzzles do get extremely tricky later on which is something I expected as I found even some of the earlier chapters mind-boggling, to say the least. While the game is short, the puzzles will improve the longevity of A Fold Apart.

The style of the characters along with the environments and soft mellow sounds makes the game a joy to play. If you enjoy puzzles and a meaningful story then A Fold Apart is for you.

A PS4 code was provided by Lightning Rod Games