Fragments of Him Review

Produced by Sassybot, Fragments of Him entails a narrative of both before, during and after the death of Will. Playing as Will initially, you go through his morning procedure and build to his death. Following this, you get a retrospective of Will and what he means to Harry (his boyfriend), Sarah (his ex and first love) and Mary (his grandmother).

Having not read the description, the initial opening scene was cool and the death of Will gave me a shock when I didn’t know what to expect - I thought I got a bad ending with my choice. Loading the next scene, I expected a funeral but just awoke on the bed because of an alarm clock. This is when the real meat of the game comes in, its ability to tell a narrative and story shined from then on. The fact the character was gay was presented casually and didn’t make a big fuss about it, it was a pleasant surprise with how the story felt innocent and sweet without it feeling crammed in order to make a point. The artistic choice and style of the game further aided my enjoyment, feeling experimental, it sold with its expressionist concept.

They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts

The gameplay with the third person style movement with a fixed camera and use of a button/trigger to initiate an action felt more akin to a kinetic novel and felt not too dissimilar to Gone Home. The game’s presentation of a story was told really well and the voice actors for the characters sold their performances. Overall it felt like a genuine story, that didn’t feel cobbled together, and yet, felt like it went nowhere. Parts of me wanted more, but like the title suggests, its fragmented storytelling leaves the polyphony intradiegetic (where the speaker is the narrator and narrated within the story/scene) narrative to be somewhat of a disservice coupled with the overabundance of loading screens compared to the narrative told.

As a game it didn’t sit well for me, parts of the sequences felt slow relative to the narrative and the pacing of the mechanics gave periods of dead air which undermined the story’s presentation. But the narrative’s order and its method of sequencing them did little to improve the story’s dynamic, and compared to Captain Corelli's Mandolin (yes it’s a book, but matches the game’s) polyphony narrative, it lacks a certain polish. But it serves the purpose of aligning of who Will is, rather than developing him as a character, the narrative aids in presenting who Will is.

Guess you could say, it's the driving force behind the game.

Ultimately though, the game leads to Harry and his cope with the loss of his dearly beloved Will. But this is where the game gets most interesting for me, it feels like an outside perspective of Will as a gay character and how others react to him, rather than the themes of loss - although they are quite present throughout the game. It starts off with Will and leads to his childhood with his grandmother who tells us what Will was like younger, it then evolves into him becoming the grandson she wishes for: becoming strong, kind, finding a girlfriend and studying in University for a good education. Once she finds out he’s gay, she runs away, distances herself and becomes afraid after losing what she had treasured with - what can be seen as - the identity of Will because of his sexuality.

This provided a rather compelling story, much akin to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin with Carlo’s representation, it doesn’t delve into what makes a person homosexual but focuses on a wider picture. I can appreciate that when story’s start to follow a trend, it takes something like this to be a breath of fresh air.

Maybe studying English as course wasn't the smartest choice

But then there’s the issue for me, I just couldn’t relate to this game at all. Having not experienced any of these things: finding/having a relationship, falling/being in love or losing someone (yet). I found myself feeling like an outsider that can only see events and actions for what they are, rather than what they mean. There are parts of the narrative that stick out as being interesting on an intellectual bases, but emotionally I felt despondent to it all. The opening scene had its impact for being unexpected, but from then on, I just couldn’t connect to what I saw, heard and experienced despite going through it twice to make separate decisions. Which to a certain extent made me feel lost in a sense, where the content and it’s level of seriousness couldn’t get me to think differently other than: if this had more polish this could be used as case study for studying narrative in videogames.