Trauma (video game)
Encyclopedia
Trauma is a graphical adventure
interactive fiction
game developed by Polish programmer Krystian Majewski as part of a thesis project, and released in August 2011. The game is based on a woman that has suffered a physiological trauma, and has been languishing in several dreamscapes while unconscious and hospitalized. The player resolves these by using both point-and-click
and gesture-based actions to move about the dreamscapes, composed of photographs with digitally-altered features, to complete a certain task. Each dreamscape also contains several alternate conclusions and a number of hidden photographs that provide hints towards these alternate conclusions in other dreamscapes.
The game was nominated for, but did not win, several independent gaming development awards in 2010, including the Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival
. Trauma, though short, has been stated to provide a compelling, emotional environment, aided through its graphical and musical assets.
, presented as four different dreamscapes in the opening menu. The game is introduced by full motion video of the game's narrator becoming hospitalized in a car crash, and speaking to herself to understand what has happened to her. After selecting a dreamscape, the player is presented with the game's main interface, generally a single photographic image, with some digitally altered features. By moving the cursor around, the player can see dim images of adjacent areas or images of the same area but from a different angle. This gives the effect of segmented panoramic photography
in certain areas of the game. Clicking on these images when they appear will take the player to that next image, thus allowing them to "wander" through the dreamscape.
The primary goal of each dreamscape is told to the player at the onset of the dreamscape, such as lifting a sphere off a teddy bear or catching up to a ghost-like figure. As the player moves about, the female character narrates facets of her thoughts and provides hints of what to look for. Within each area are nine Polaroid
photos to be found; several provide information on using gestures to also navigate the landscape, such as turning around from an object or backing away; these gestures are needed in certain cases to reach specific areas. The player also learns of a unique gesture that interacts with a specific object in the dreamscape; for example, a gesture that mimics the circling of water down a drain is used to trigger an event when the player sees a drain, which can open an additional path to explore or reach one of the dreamscape's conclusions. These gestures, though only shown in one dreamscape, apply across the game, and may be used to reach one of the three alternate endings for each dreamscape.
The player is challenged through tracking in the game's menus to complete every possible ending and to locate every Polaroid photograph. When the player has completed all the endings to a dreamscape, they are given a "photo tracker" that tells them how close they are to unfound photographs within the dreamscape as they move about, making it easier to complete this collection.
, personnel commitments held up development. The final game was mostly complete by the last half of 2009. The game was developed in Adobe Flash
using the Papervision 3D engine and ByteArray gesturing system.
Majewski was inspired by the photo-realistic look of the game Samorost
, and used his own photography to create the dreamscapes. The locations uses were inspired by his childhood memories of dark lonely places such as hospital hallways and railroad stations in foreign countries. He had originally tried to create his own spherical panoramas using a homemade tripod constructed from Lego
bricks, but opted instead to use Photosynth technology to stitch the photographs together. The gesture-based system was inspired by the onset of Nintendo's Wii
and DS
units at the time of the game's creation. Majewski, in incorporating a lightpainting
effect to show the results of the gesture, found the style to fit naturally with the photographic approach. The game's music was composed by Martin Straka, who was brought aboard early in the development process.
Majewski purposely designed the game to be short. He compared players to tourists, a previous connection that Cyan Worlds
used to describe players in Myst
. To this end, he created puzzles that were "simple and pretty straight-forward", creating an alternative to the usual interactive experience of graphical adventure games with difficult puzzles to solve. Majewski stated that "If you stay longer it's because you are interested, not because you got stuck".
The game was originally released both as a standalone application, and a browser-based game. The standalone application could be purchased as a pay what you want
model, or through the Steam platform. In October 2011, the game was added to the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle
, a charitable salesdrive.
Brice Morrison, writing for Gamasutra
, identified that Trauma created a gameplay environment that would feel real to the player, aided through the use of photography and a simple movement interface. The environment was further aided through the subtle music that can "keep [the player] on an uneasy edge, but not enough for [them] to consciously wake up to it". Furthermore, Morrison praised the browser-based version of the game for minimizing the distractions normally associated with Flash games, and providing a way of luring the player to explore more of the game. Jason Johnson for Pitchfork Media
considered the game to favorably leave the player with "an unsettling feeling that you can’t quite put your finger on", lingering on the edges of "solemn and chilling" and "profound and inconsequential". Gamespot
's Kevin VanOrd was more critical of the voice actress used to narrate the game, calling her work "emotionally distant", along with the "aloof" writing that prevents the player from becoming entranced by the narrator's trauma.
Reviewers felt that the game, which can be fully completed in under two hours, could have been longer. Anthony Gallegos of IGN
considered that once he had completed the full game, there was "still so much more it could explore with its intense themes". The game was identified as one that would not likely attract the normal video game player. Eurogamer
's Simon Parkin recognized that Truama relies on "its ambiance and mystery to engage and entertain", a facet that most players do not seek, but considered that Trauma was successful in doing so. Jamie Dalzell of Gamespy
likened the game to an art game
, with limited target audience that will appreciate the game.
Trauma was nominated for, but did not win, several 2010 Independent Games Festival awards, including Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. The title was also nominated as a finalist in the 2010 Indiecade
awards and in the 2010 European Innovative Games Awards in the field of Innovative Application Methods and Environment.
Graphic adventure game
A graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception...
interactive fiction
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
game developed by Polish programmer Krystian Majewski as part of a thesis project, and released in August 2011. The game is based on a woman that has suffered a physiological trauma, and has been languishing in several dreamscapes while unconscious and hospitalized. The player resolves these by using both point-and-click
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
and gesture-based actions to move about the dreamscapes, composed of photographs with digitally-altered features, to complete a certain task. Each dreamscape also contains several alternate conclusions and a number of hidden photographs that provide hints towards these alternate conclusions in other dreamscapes.
The game was nominated for, but did not win, several independent gaming development awards in 2010, including the Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
. Trauma, though short, has been stated to provide a compelling, emotional environment, aided through its graphical and musical assets.
Gameplay
Trauma is a graphical adventure gameAdventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
, presented as four different dreamscapes in the opening menu. The game is introduced by full motion video of the game's narrator becoming hospitalized in a car crash, and speaking to herself to understand what has happened to her. After selecting a dreamscape, the player is presented with the game's main interface, generally a single photographic image, with some digitally altered features. By moving the cursor around, the player can see dim images of adjacent areas or images of the same area but from a different angle. This gives the effect of segmented panoramic photography
Panoramic photography
Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio...
in certain areas of the game. Clicking on these images when they appear will take the player to that next image, thus allowing them to "wander" through the dreamscape.
The primary goal of each dreamscape is told to the player at the onset of the dreamscape, such as lifting a sphere off a teddy bear or catching up to a ghost-like figure. As the player moves about, the female character narrates facets of her thoughts and provides hints of what to look for. Within each area are nine Polaroid
Instant camera
The instant camera is a type of camera that generates a developed film image. The most popular types to use self-developing film were formerly made by Polaroid Corporation....
photos to be found; several provide information on using gestures to also navigate the landscape, such as turning around from an object or backing away; these gestures are needed in certain cases to reach specific areas. The player also learns of a unique gesture that interacts with a specific object in the dreamscape; for example, a gesture that mimics the circling of water down a drain is used to trigger an event when the player sees a drain, which can open an additional path to explore or reach one of the dreamscape's conclusions. These gestures, though only shown in one dreamscape, apply across the game, and may be used to reach one of the three alternate endings for each dreamscape.
The player is challenged through tracking in the game's menus to complete every possible ending and to locate every Polaroid photograph. When the player has completed all the endings to a dreamscape, they are given a "photo tracker" that tells them how close they are to unfound photographs within the dreamscape as they move about, making it easier to complete this collection.
Development
Trauma is the work of Polish programmer Krystian Majewski which he started as part of his university thesis project in 2008. Initial development began in 2007, with the first level completed in 2008 and used in the presentation of his thesis. Though Majewski aimed to have submitted the completed game for the 2009 Independent Games FestivalIndependent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
, personnel commitments held up development. The final game was mostly complete by the last half of 2009. The game was developed in Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
using the Papervision 3D engine and ByteArray gesturing system.
Majewski was inspired by the photo-realistic look of the game Samorost
Samorost
Samorost is a puzzle point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. The first game of the Samorost series, it was released in 2003 for free at the Amanita Design website.-Development:...
, and used his own photography to create the dreamscapes. The locations uses were inspired by his childhood memories of dark lonely places such as hospital hallways and railroad stations in foreign countries. He had originally tried to create his own spherical panoramas using a homemade tripod constructed from Lego
Lego
Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts...
bricks, but opted instead to use Photosynth technology to stitch the photographs together. The gesture-based system was inspired by the onset of Nintendo's Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
and DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
units at the time of the game's creation. Majewski, in incorporating a lightpainting
Lightpainting
Lightpainting is an art form developed by artist Stephen Knapp and introduced in 2002. Lightpainting is not to be confused with light painting , the latter of which is a photographic process recording traces of light on film or digital media to create images that must be reproduced in printed or...
effect to show the results of the gesture, found the style to fit naturally with the photographic approach. The game's music was composed by Martin Straka, who was brought aboard early in the development process.
Majewski purposely designed the game to be short. He compared players to tourists, a previous connection that Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds
Cyan Worlds, Inc. is a video game development company, founded by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, and best known as the creators of the Myst series. After Myst and its sequel Riven sold several million copies each, Cyan went on to create the massively multiplayer online adventure, Uru,...
used to describe players in Myst
Myst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
. To this end, he created puzzles that were "simple and pretty straight-forward", creating an alternative to the usual interactive experience of graphical adventure games with difficult puzzles to solve. Majewski stated that "If you stay longer it's because you are interested, not because you got stuck".
The game was originally released both as a standalone application, and a browser-based game. The standalone application could be purchased as a pay what you want
Pay what you want
Pay what you want is a pricing system where buyers pay any desired amount for a given commodity, sometimes including zero. In some cases, a minimum price may be set, and/or a suggested price may be indicated as guidance for the buyer. The buyer can also select an amount higher than the standard...
model, or through the Steam platform. In October 2011, the game was added to the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle
Humble Indie Bundle
The Humble Indie Bundles or Humble Bundles are a series of game bundles, that are sold and distributed online at a price determined by the purchaser. The games are multi-platform, DRM-free, and independently developed, and buyers can set the revenue split between the developers, charities and...
, a charitable salesdrive.
Reception
Trauma received moderate reviews on its release. Most critics praised the visual appeal and interface presentation of the game, but found the game too short and unlikely to be appealing to most players.Brice Morrison, writing for Gamasutra
Gamasutra
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
, identified that Trauma created a gameplay environment that would feel real to the player, aided through the use of photography and a simple movement interface. The environment was further aided through the subtle music that can "keep [the player] on an uneasy edge, but not enough for [them] to consciously wake up to it". Furthermore, Morrison praised the browser-based version of the game for minimizing the distractions normally associated with Flash games, and providing a way of luring the player to explore more of the game. Jason Johnson for Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
considered the game to favorably leave the player with "an unsettling feeling that you can’t quite put your finger on", lingering on the edges of "solemn and chilling" and "profound and inconsequential". Gamespot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
's Kevin VanOrd was more critical of the voice actress used to narrate the game, calling her work "emotionally distant", along with the "aloof" writing that prevents the player from becoming entranced by the narrator's trauma.
Reviewers felt that the game, which can be fully completed in under two hours, could have been longer. Anthony Gallegos of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
considered that once he had completed the full game, there was "still so much more it could explore with its intense themes". The game was identified as one that would not likely attract the normal video game player. Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
's Simon Parkin recognized that Truama relies on "its ambiance and mystery to engage and entertain", a facet that most players do not seek, but considered that Trauma was successful in doing so. Jamie Dalzell of Gamespy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
likened the game to an art game
Art game
An art game or arthouse game is a video game that is designed in such a way as to emphasize art or whose structure is intended to produce some kind of reaction in its audience. Art games typically go out of their way to have a unique, unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty or...
, with limited target audience that will appreciate the game.
Trauma was nominated for, but did not win, several 2010 Independent Games Festival awards, including Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. The title was also nominated as a finalist in the 2010 Indiecade
Indiecade
Indiecade or IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent video games. IndieCade is known as "the video game industry's Sundance". At IndieCade independent video game developers are selected to screen and promote their work at the annual IndieCade festival and showcase events...
awards and in the 2010 European Innovative Games Awards in the field of Innovative Application Methods and Environment.