The Almost Gone (PC)

While an award-winning author in his homeland of Belgium, Joost Vandecasteele is not a man whose works I’m familiar with nor would I have likely sought out his work because of the language barrier that seems to still exist to experiencing many of them. However, while his longer literature may never reach my hands, his writing skill was put to use in a humble indie game known as The Almost Gone, a game I came to for its puzzle gameplay and ran into this story from a man in another part of the world. A voice that could have otherwise been locked to his region of influence was given a global stage, and while the capability of games to bring together a player with a creator you might never even knew existed before is a glorious part of this interactive medium, Mr. Vandecasteele’s written works are hopefully better constructed than his first spin at structuring a video game narrative.

The Almost Gone’s plot is spread across five acts where an initially mysterious and almost aimless story starts to zero in more and more on a family with an extremely dark past. The player character wakes up unsure of what is going on, finding themselves in an old house and navigating it and other dream-like spaces to start to unravel a past built off their own memories and those of their parents. Gradually they piece together a history they had no way of knowing until they found this surreal world. While the puzzles are the player’s key to exploring the diorama-like locations of The Almost Gone, this story is certainly the core focus of the experience despite the storytelling feeling uneven and lacking in the grounding required to help its heavy subjects hit with their intended impact.

As you move through the spaces The Almost Gone takes place in, you gradually build pictures of characters like your grandparents, mother, and most of all your father, the player’s character mostly chasing the messages their dad seemingly left behind to guide them through this surreal world. However, as you find new locations with unfortunate truths hidden behind puzzles, the story you piece together soon reveals itself to be primarily built on a procession of dark events that try to be heart-wrenching even though you never get to know the impacted individuals well enough outside of their traumas and dark deeds to really allow these moments to have much weight. Generically the things you learn would be awful for people to experience and there is tragedy inherent in the actions described, but it feels like very few characters besides our faceless lead get out of things without their defining characteristics being how rough their life was. It’s hard to determine if we’re meant to sympathize with a character when they are built out of shocking revelations rather than those reveals coming after we understand them in a way outside of their negative traits. Even when the game briefly touches on other people in the same neighborhood, solving a puzzle related to determining where those specific residents live goes for having them still be defined almost purely by hardships.

It can be said that The Almost Gone’s core idea is ripping away the veil of nostalgia of youth that blinds us to the suffering and hardships of the world around us. The protagonist is often shocked to find areas of comfort now corrupted by information they never knew had influenced their life for the worse. Physical manifestations of that idea appear as well like oozing black fluid swallowing certain areas or vegetation pushing through the buildings to break apart the almost pristine and sterile environments. From a metaphorical standpoint it does seem to have a degree of thought put behind it, each new act peeling back a layer of obfuscation as darker truths are revealed, but then a rather rushed and empty conclusion ties up a story that still feels like it never developed or established anyone outside of a few basic details before the game plunges into the life traumas it inflicts on puppets in its unfortunately uncompelling play.

The story is told mostly through small lines of text that appear as you explore or observations your character makes after clicking on objects, and while it’s clear The Almost Gone wants you to become emotionally invested in that part of the game, the diorama puzzles are definitely the better thought out portion of the experience despite having their own rough patches. The minimalist art style would be an effective companion to the themes of the story were that element effective, and moody use of colors and the interesting forces that penetrate the artificial facades of these memories do a good job of conveying things subtly in a game that would usually prefer to pound tragedy into your brain. The opening house, a rainy neighborhood street, and an empty hospital not only take this journey to new locations but come with sets of puzzles that range in effectiveness. Some are nifty like using constellation charts to unravel a code or rearranging the pneumatic tubes of a mail delivery system to move objects around a space, but some ideas like the unusual uses of the laser pointer in the streets or even locating where an object of importance in a level might be mean it is an uneven road to engaging with this side of The Almost Gone, one not helped by how the basic controls interact with the diorama style.

The Almost Gone’s origins as a mobile game become clear the moment you need to click and drag a room to rotate it. Rooms are often fairly small but can still feature many potential areas of interaction like busy bookshelves or set dressing that wouldn’t normally be suspicious turning out to be important like a storm drain. While the game does favor drawers and objects that stand out in the environment first and foremost, you’ll still run into many moments where a specific path forward isn’t easy to determine because of how a room’s display works. Each rotation of the room is 90 degrees, with one wall disappearing so you can peer in and all the objects attached to that wall disappearing with it. Sometimes a very small object can only be visible from one angle and having it outright invisible at points can make scouring the world for the right item a tedious affair. Even worse is the spaces you explore can sometimes be 15 to 20 rooms long with the map only visible while standing still and only displaying rooms as featureless squares so you’ll need to build your own mental map to not only interpret this map but remember where things will be after you’ve rotated the current room over and over. Some areas can only be reached by taking the correct direct path as well with the map not showing how rooms even connect, and while The Almost Gone does provide the mercy of sometimes locking off areas you have no business returning to, sometimes you are given a huge area to explore until things finally start to click. A few nifty perspective tricks definitely don’t justify the repeated frustration in traveling through these diorama worlds.

THE VERDICT: The Almost Gone wants to have all the artistic and emotional weight of tragedies and shocking reveals without the narrative grounding of characters who exist beyond their suffering, and while the visual aspect of the game can convey the messages of an idyllic path hiding dark truths, the narrative is too impatient and doesn’t even resolve well after all it puts its characters through. The storytelling’s confused nature does match the player’s confusion as the oddly strung together diorama rooms, despite featuring some neat puzzle concepts with a few creative ideas, start to lose their luster as you scour a space that is hard to navigate for things that barely stick out despite their importance. The Almost Gone is still fairly playable despite the stumbling points, but the way things tie together is done too poorly to satisfy your desire for thought-provoking puzzle designs or an impactful story.

And so, I give The Almost Gone for PC…

A BAD rating. If more time was spent building up people instead of victims, a lot of The Almost Gone’s attempts at constructing a deep story could have been effective. Applying the rampant tragedies found in this unfortunate family to people who have more character to them would allow these to feel like the kind of shocking revelations they’re meant to be in the world of the game. You do see glimpses of the normal lives your parents and grandparents lead and can sometimes get a brief explanation of how it factors into the darker side of their lives, but it still feels like informed characteristics for events that would be generically sad no matter who was involved. The visual metaphors are there to support a more intimate story and the whole idea behind tearing away the artificial images we build up of our past to hide the unfortunate secrets that make up our lives could be a very effective through line for exploring these diorama spaces. Unfortunately it almost feels like the game doesn’t want to commit to strong details to make it more broadly applicable even though the nature of ascribing even simple traits like the father being an architect already pull it away from that without pushing it far enough to be a focused story. Instead, The Almost Gone mostly relies on its better puzzle moments, specifically because their interesting way of thinking and unique mechanics can string you along until you realize the narrative is only packing superficial punches. The diorama layout and searching for small objects in these large levels definitely deserve some tidying up to avoid the moments where progress is only being blocked by confusing design, but the writing is definitely where things need the biggest overhaul without a doubt.

I do not know if The Almost Gone is in line with Joost Vandescasteele’s usual output or if the video game medium lead to an unusual break from form, but the thing is, unless someone else comes along who is familiar with his work and can inform me, I’ll likely only ever experience his talent by way of this game. The Almost Gone had areas of promise, but the confusing navigation of its world and story are what defines this uneven artistic endeavor. While this video game was a chance to experience the work of a storyteller from another part of the world, the story being told did not translate into the evocative and emotional tale it was intended to be.