Memoranda

여러 초현실적인 사건이 일어나는 마을 속에서 자신의 이름을 찾아내려고 고생하는 한 여자의 이야기 자신의 이름을 자꾸 까먹는 여주인공 Mizuki 가 불면증까지 겹쳐서 고통받는 와중에, 자기의 잠자리를 자꾸 방해해서 불면증의 원인을 제공하는 왠 늙은 난쟁이를 내쫓고 이름을 다시 알아내고자, 마을 곳곳을 돌아다니며 기묘한 사람들을 만나 그들의 고민을 해결해 주는 방식으로 진행되는 포인트 앤 클릭 게임이다. 방금 쓴 문장의 중간 부분이 약간 이상하게 들릴 수 있다면 정상인데, 이 게임의 기반이 무라카미 하루키의 초현실적 단편 소설들에서 영감을 받았기 때문에 게임을 진행하다 보면 기본 상식으로는 이해하기 힘든 사건들 / 인물들 / 오브젝트들이 곳곳에 등장하기 때문이다. 안타깝게도 이 글을 쓰는 기준 무라카미 하루키의 소설들을 단 하나도 읽어 본 적이 없는 문외한이라 얼마나 영향을 받았는지는 자세히 적을 수 없지만, 다행히 게임을 이해하는 데는 (정확히 말하자면, 스토리의 흐름을 이해한다는 게 아니라 도대체 무슨 일이 일어나는지 1차원적으로 이해하는 것을 의미한다) 배경지식이 별로 필요하지 않기 때문에 위에서 말한 단편 소설들을 읽지 않아도 게임을 진행하는 데에는 문제가 없다. 포인트 앤 클릭 게임들에 비현실적이거나 기묘한 비주얼이 나오는 건 평범한 일이여서 사실 이 게임도 다른 기이한 포인트 앤 클릭 게임들을 하는 것처럼 너무 이성적으로 접근하지 말고 뇌를 가볍게 한 뒤 즐기면 그럭저럭 재미있게 즐길 수 있다. 다만, 위에서 말한 기이한 게임들에 비교해서 호불호가 갈릴 수 있는 점은 논리적이지 못한 몇몇 퍼즐들인데, 정확히 말하자면 게임 진행 방식 중 정상적인 사고 말고 다른 방식으로 생각해야 진행할 수 있는 구간들이 몇몇 존재해서 평가들을 보면 이러한 구간들 때문에 비추천이 박혀 있는 모습을 볼 수 있다. 개인적으로는 이러한 리뷰들을 미리 보고 게임을 진행하였기 때문에, 공략을 한 쪽에 펴 놓고 이를 참고하면서 진행하여서 한 구간에서 오랫동안 막힐 때마다 머리를 비우고 공략을 참조했지만, 만약 포인트 앤 클릭을 하면서 개연성이 없거나 황당무계한 퍼즐들을 싫어한다면 이 게임도 좋지 않은 인상을 남길 가능성이 크다. 그럼에도 불구하고 추천을 준 이유는 게임 내 기묘한 인물들 및 사건들이 마음에 들어서 그런데, 초현실적인 게임들을 좋아하는 입장으로써 게임 내 예측할 수 없는 오브젝트들이 등장하는 게임 전개에 대한 거부감이 없고, 여기에 이러한 오브젝트들이 현실 속에 나올 것 같지 않을수록 좋아하는 개인적인 취향 때문이다. 또한 게임 내 나오는 인물들이 모두 공통점이 없는 건 아닌데, 크게 보면 게임 내 나오는 주 등장인물들 모두 무언가를 잃어간다 / 잊어버린다는 특징이 있어 (예를 들면, 여주인공의 경우 당연히 이름을 잊어버리고 있고, 게임을 진행하며 나오는 "동물로 변하는 인간들" 은 자신의 인간 시절 모습을 버리고 동물로 변한다는 특징이 있다.) 이 게임이 어떠한 방식으로 망각을 표현하고 있는지 어느 정도 느낄 수 있다. 물론, 이 점을 안다고 해서 스토리의 전개 흐름을 완벽히 이해할 수 있다는 건 아니여서, 너무 논리적으로 생각하지 말고 이야기에 몰입하는 걸 권장한다... 결론적으로, 게임의 진행 방식 중 완벽히 이해가 가지 않을 만한 구간이 존재하며 스토리의 진행 방향도 완벽하게 이해가 가지 않을 확률이 높지만, 짧고 기묘한 포인트 앤 클릭 게임을 해보고 싶을 때 하면 나쁘지 않을 게임이라 일단은 추천. 발매된 지 시간이 좀 지난 게임이라 할인률이 높은 편이고, 장르 특성상 막히면 공략을 보고 빠르게 답답한 구간들을 넘길 수 있으니 해보고 싶다면 할인을 많이 할 때 구매해서 한 번 해보는 걸 추천한다. 여담) 그래도 게임의 비주얼은 취향에 맞아서 시각적으로 나쁘다고 생각된 부분이 없었고, 게임 내 상호작용 가능한 물체들을 명확하게 확인할 수 있는 기능이 게임 내 탑재되어 있어 편의성 부분은 괜찮다.

The most irrational, illogical, frustrating - P&C - game what I played in the last few years. I want to enjoy and playing a game, not always reading a walkthrough.

Un jeu d'aventure en point n' click au gameplay traditionnel avec une très belle esthétique & design qui fourmille de petits détails & de petites animations un peu partout, une bande-son onirique très bien réalisé, de très bons dialogues en anglais & des sons d'ambiances qui rend la ville très vivante... On y incarne une jeune femme insomniaque & pseudo-amnésique...un plot de base intrigant donc... Mais l'histoire est confuse & obscure, on est dès le début complètement perdu sans savoir quoi faire & dans quel but... On est obligé à l'instar de son héroïne d'utiliser le carnet du jeu qui est une liste de choses à faire sans aucunes corrélation & la carte pour aller d'un point d’intérêt à un autre juste parce-que... Si rajoutes des énigmes par endroits tout aussi vagues pour avoir certains objets pour résoudre d'autres sans lien & y essayer divers combinaison d'objets...& on tournera en rond jusqu'à débloquer un autre lieu, perso ou objets après avoir tout examiner (heureusement il y a un système de 'hotspot') Dommage car tout y est bien réussi mais l'histoire fouillis & sans queue ni tête nous perd rapidement quand on n'y reste pas bloqué..le tout avec une fin tout aussi abrupte...

This was a terrific adventure game. It reminded me of old school titles like toonstruck or monkey island, but had a unique flair of its own. There were many locations which open up as you went along. They were cozy and beautiful. There were many people, animals and characters to meet and interact with. The puzzles were simple yet clever. The inventory system was simple enough and you could combine some items. My only complaint is that some of the item combinations were ridiculous and a couple of times I had no clue where to go next. But in the end everything turned out very nicely and the story which was pretty cool wrapped up nearly. I truly enjoyed this amazing adventure. I'd love to see a few more like this one from this developer. Excellent game!

[i]Memoranda[/i] is a very strange game about a young lady suffering from severe insomnia who has lost her name and now is searching around the town for it. It's hard to rate as there are up to three layers that influence the overall experience and each of them has its ups and downs. 1) The story is, according to the store page, inspired by [i]Haruki Murakami[/i] and his short stories. I can't relate to it much as I am not familiar with his work. The game felt to me very surreal with hints of magic realism making it somewhat hard to comprehend. After one bizarre encounter following another, I stopped trying to understand it and just went with the flow. We encounter a lot of various characters, some of them are ordinary and some of them are quite un-ordinary. Interacting with them is mostly fun, but in the end, it doesn't lead anywhere. At least for the main heroine because I still don't know what to make off of the ending. 2) The graphics are hand-drawn, rather unique but still pretty. The soundtrack is also very specific but suits the mood of the game. The voice acting is… fine, again in terms of the surreal feeling. My only problem was with the voice of our heroine as she lisps and it was somewhat unsettling. 3) As for gameplay, it's a standard point-and-click adventure game. We have inventory, a logbook, and a map at our disposal. We have to go around the town, collect and combine items, and help our fellow citizens with their burdens. There are also puzzles to be solved. Although they can seem quite obscure, they are still logical. If they prove too challenging you can use a built-in hint system. Through the game, one can easily become stuck as most situations are resolved by nonsensical solutions so don't be surprised when you end up going in circles and tearing your hair out in despair from [i]how the hell was I supposed to know that?[/i] tantrum. [i]Memoranda[/i] isn't perfect and I struggled with it, but I suppose I will recommend it. If you are a lover of adventure games you can enjoy it, even more, if your mind is open to the surreal, absurd, and nonsensical storytelling.

光看画风就秒杀文青的指向点击冒险，讲述失眠女孩在充满人形动物的小镇里寻回自身名字的奇幻故事。咖啡馆的躁动和面包店的富饶充斥着恶臭的小资情调，沙滩上幻化为鱼的残疾少年玩弄一把小清新的自由美好。缺陷是解密缺乏逻辑推理，依靠太多天马行空的想象力，不看攻略很难推进。人物塑造和意向取用大量致敬村上春树，不过我不是粉丝就不乱解析了。没有跌宕起伏的剧情，没有绞尽脑汁的烦恼，单纯感受这样一个平和静谧的海滨小镇、一种悠然自得的生活方式，确实是款令人远离焦虑情绪的愉快小品。 “再也无须前思后想，一切岂非已然过往。”

I'd like to leave a "neutral" review. Nice art and atmosphere. Puzzles aren't that interesting or necessarily very logical. Quite quickly you turn to the "trying everything with everything", why else would someone ingest petrol? There's still some bugs that aren't so nice. World changing is arbitrary at times. Sometimes you give the correct solution but the game doesn't accept it because you need to have triggered the solution by interacting with specific things. Sometimes you give a partial correct solution by selecting the right item before combining it and the game tells you you're flat out wrong without hinting you're partially there. I found the ending a bit underwhelming, not great if you like deducing information, because the logic is either a bit loopy or the small puzzles are exceedingly simple. Also why can't I give back the elephant picture or tell the lady where her cat is :( some closure is missing. 5/10 (closer to a 6 than a 4).

I was charmed, if a little befuddled, by Memoranda, an arthouse point-and-click adventure from 2017 based on the short stories of Haruki Murakami. In Memoranda, we follow a directionless 25-year old insomniac, separated from her husband, who experiences frequent episodes where she forgets her own name and nothing else. While over the course of the game we do end up resolving the insomnia and the forgetfulness, we are in no hurry to get there. The rest of the game is comprised of loosely connected oddball characters, bizarre ideas, and story fragments lifted out of the pages of the myriad short stories that inspired the creators. In this game, we meet a baker obsessed with Wagner, track down a man-sized elephant being hidden by a pasta-obsessed psychiatric patient, visit a puppeteer who exclusively watches hundred-year-old disaster footage on black-and-white television, turn a man into a fish (much to his delight), and learn a magic spell from one hundred and ten singing frogs. If you are expecting any sort of explanation or answer for any of these things, well too bad, because you aren't going to get any, and the overall effect definitely feels like you are walking around in Alice's Wonderland or a crazy person's head. It's a beautiful journey, though, as the background art in Memoranda is colorful, memorable, and gorgeous, and the whole game is accompanied by a lovely soundtrack that does a great job of setting the mood. The game is fully voice acted, though some of the acting is a little hit-and-miss, and has a slick mouse+keyboard interface with modern conveniences such as hotspot highlight, double-click to transition instantly, and fast-travel. Unfortunately, while the game is a great love letter to the source material that inspired it, it doesn't do a great job at turning that material into a cohesive story or building its own tension. While this does give the game a kind of fascinating storybook fever dream effect, and has inspired me to want to go read all of the source material myself, it is not a great narrative that really stands on its own. Another result of this is that the game sometimes suffers from both unclear objectives or poorly signposted puzzles. Some of the puzzles do have a tiered hint system which is quite handy, but not all of them, and unless you are particularly patient you will likely be reaching for a guide a few times, as while most puzzles are fine, a handful are particularly egregious. Despite the flaws, and occasionally frustrating puzzles, I enjoyed my time with Memoranda. It is an interesting and artistic experience, and a really cool execution of what is clearly a passion project. Thumbs up.

Great adventure game. Very enjoyable to play. Played on windows 11 for about 2.5 hours.

тупейшие головоломки, плохая музыка и сюжет. только рисовка вывозит 3/10