Broken Pieces Review

Broken Pieces, by French developers Elsewhere Experience, is a strange game. There is the obvious strangeness of the plot to start with. Centered on Elise, a woman trapped in an empty(?) coastal town called Saint-Exil that seems to be haunted by apparitions, the plot weaves a fascinating story of subterfuge. There are elements of Horror, Sci-Fi and even Cold-War espionage mixed into stew pot of a story, and the way the narrative and the people delivering the voice acting therein flit between these moods delivers a convincingly unnerving feel to the proceedings.

For instance, early in Broken Pieces, Elise talks of the dangers in the town, she alludes to a cult, and some soldiers, recordings on her trusty Walkman have her sounding terrified and alone in the early days of whatever befell Saint-Exil. However, a few minutes later Elise cheerily goes ‘I need to solve this puzzle, so I will use my magic crystal to cause a thunderstorm.’  

This strangeness is emphasised by the script itself – Elise’s voice actor does a convincing job of being a native English speaker, but some of the lines she delivers are in this fashion that resembles an Escher Sentence – on the surface it seems fine but makes no sense on re-examination. Some of it is bad translation like Elise’s tape player says Fast Forward and Fast Backwards, but there are other parts that feel more deliberate, more unsettling for an English speaker. For me, it just worked within the setting of the game. As the player I felt like I had stumbled into a story that was already halfway told and there was assumption that I was going to have to catch up along the way.

 I’ve written in some detail about the story, but I should dedicate some attention to the gameplay too that continues its strangeness. Broken Pieces is a third-person, point-and-click game at its heart, Elise must go around find items that fit into other items or figure out simple number puzzles and the like. There is some shooting combat with the enigmatic spectres haunting the town, their story is explained later in the game. There is also a time mechanic where each day cycle plays out and travelling to certain areas costs hours of time, and Elise must return home before nightfall. There is weather/climate control introduced about a third of the way through where Elise can not only summon rain but change it to winter. All those mechanics don’t seem to surprise Elise, certainly, she takes a moment to explain that these things happen because of the crystal on her wrist but at no point does she to take the time to express how weird these things are in otherwise normal setting of Saint-Exil.

All of this led me to really enjoy Broken Pieces. The off-kilter nature of the monologues and the way it delves into magical realism while also rooting much of its play in the mundane makes Broken Pieces feel unique – there might be swirling towers of water in the bay, but it is more important to find a guy’s birthday so that a combination lock can be solved.

If I was going to complain about anything is that the combat feels undercooked. Certainly it is interesting how encounters will randomly trigger, but the fights themselves are tedious and other than the initial shock value offer little to the world. Fortunately, the developers have acknowledged that and there is a mode that gets rid of it.

Otherwise, Broken Pieces is one of the more unusual games this year, propelled by weird localisation choices and a commitment to not helping the user too much from a narrative perspective – I found this game as compelling as Deadly Premonition and Syberia in its pursuit of a singular voice and world.

Conclusion

The mixture of exploration and puzzle solving is solid but the unsettling weirdness of its location and story is what makes Broken Pieces a must play for all point and clickers out there.