‘Tis Better To Have Loved And Lost Than To Backtrack

When the Past was Around (Image: Screengrab) Indonesian developers Toge Productions and Mojiken have announced the release of the indie title When the Past was Around. You can get it right now from Steam. When the Past was Around has been described as “a whimsical point-and-click puzzle game about love and letting go.”. Nov 18, 2020 When The Past Was Around invites gamers to gather clues, solve puzzles and unravel secrets buried deep within the protagonist's memory. Award-winning violin music accompanies you as you explore.

HIGH Sharing a biscuit over tea with the owl.

LOW Having to backtrack two rooms to find a clue I forgot about.

The prologue of When the Past was Around, an upcoming adventure point-and-click puzzle game about love, moving on, and letting go is available on Steam now!

WTF Breaking all the tombstones in the cemetery.

In this new point-and-click adventure from Studio Mojiken, themes of love and loss abound. While this will probably turn some people away, I wouldn’t define When the Past was Around as a sad game. It has an air of melancholy hanging above it, sure, but never really gets dramatic or heavy with details — and in the end, this proves to be its biggest problem.
Gameplay is pretty straightforward — click around to find keys or clues to open doors or locks, and drag items from the inventory to use them. While it’s not possible to directly control the protagonist and only a few objects can be meaningfully interacted with, most can still be touched. A player can break all the pots in a room or knock over every cup in the coffee shop, for example. It’s an intriguing idea, but not used to great effect here.

While the puzzles are mostly fine, there are a couple of obtuse instances that seem to harken back to frustrations typically found in the ‘good old days’ of the genre. Luckily, we get nothing as extreme as a moustache that needs to be made with cat hair and glue, nor are any monkeys used to open a faucet. Still, the few obtuse puzzles I encountered left a weird taste in my mouth since, from the art style to its short length, When the Past was Around seems tailored to the sort of casual gamer drawn in by an engaging story rather than brain-busting gameplay.

When The Past Was Around Walkthrough

Unfortunately, there’s not much to the story, either. I suppose there’s no point in a spoiler warning since it’s clear from the first few minutes of play that it’s an experience about losing a loved one and coming to terms with that grief.

Beyond that theme, very little is revealed about its two protagonists — a girl and an owl-man musician — even after the story has wrapped up. The player only gets to see brief, happy moments immediately followed by sickness and death, which isn’t shown. The result is a simple story of reminiscing about happy times.

When The Past Was Around Game

Also, the art style is lovely — it’s a hand-drawn style reminiscent of mature Japanese mangas, even though Mojiken is an Indonesian studio. It would have been nice to see some Indonesian culture in the story, but alas.

In the end, When the Past was Around is just… okay? It’s a short experience that never goes for big moments, instead remaining quiet and subtle throughout. Sadly, the short length and simple play don’t lend itself to more than one playthrough and, after the credits rolled I found myself shrugging instead of brooding.

— Damiano Gerli

Disclosures: This game is developed by Studio Mojiken and published by Toge Productions. It is currently available on PC and MAC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 1.5 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. Journeys in middle-earth - hunt for the ember crowned.

Parents: The game is currently unrated by the ESRB. While it features adult themes of sickness and death, there are no shocking images nor overly dramatic sequences.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: It is a point-and-click adventure game with a musical theme. While there are no audio-specific puzzles, some achievements are linked to certain musical songs. There is no dialogue.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. The game is entirely controlled via the mouse either by clicking or dragging, there is no alternative control scheme.

Latest posts by GC Staff (see all)

• Torchlight 3 Review - December 10, 2020
• Shaking Up Souls: The Divergence Of Sekiro - December 5, 2020
• The Falconeer Review - December 2, 2020

PC, Mac

Yes, OK, it’s another game about grief. But bear with me on this one – as much as I’m sick and tired of the theme, and despite its absolutely awful name, When The Past Was Around is a touching and extremely beautiful little thing.

Hand-drawn animation is always a gimme for gaining that personal touch for a personal tale, and it’s absolutely lovely here. Despite being an Indonesian game, it takes a Japanese approach to the art (I think I would far rather have seen something Indonesian, given the country’s wealth of artistic heritage, and the ubiquity of Manga-likes), in its story of a young girl grieving a late lover.

Along the way it depicts falling in love, being in love, and losing love, not in a linear order, but extremely smartly put together so I never felt lost in its jumps through time. More confusing, certainly, was the depiction of the woman’s partner as a human body with an owl’s head. (I tried to be all clever here and find an example in classic literature, but the closest I got was the Kinnara, which is a human head on a bird body, but at least can be found in Indonesia. I am all about finding out things about Indonesia today.)

Both are musicians, and their tale has the continuous thread of a particular melody, played by her music box, his violin on their first meeting, and then used as a means of entering allegorical depictions of her grief. It’s very effective, and I found myself humming the refrain long after I’d finished the game. And fortunately, if you’re as unmusical as me, you don’t need to worry about being required to replicate it on an instrument based on the notes alone.

That’s not to say it doesn’t use a fair few hoary old puzzles that really ought to be banned from gaming forever. But more often it’s a game about solving little point-and-click puzzles, escape room-style. In fact, the games it reminded me of the most – not least for having a bird-headed man, was the Rusty Lake series. If the Rusty Lake games are from the evil moustachioed version of a universe, then When The Past Was Around is from the original good realm. That Rusty Lake gets a thank you in the credits seems noteworthy.

It’s also interesting that while it’s occasionally mawkish, with outstretched arms and glowing feathers, it’s also impressively destructive too. Sometimes clicking on items in a room will tidy and sort. But other times it will throw books off shelves, smash plants, or just petulantly knock things over. It feels angry, which is an emotional grossly lacking in most games on this theme.

While so much is metaphorical, it’s always clear what emotions it’s communicating, rather than disappearing too far up its own bottom. I had some real concerns about the ending, but make sure you wait until the end of the credits – it was quite a relief.

When The Past Was Around Ending

There’s a really smart use of melody here, in amongst some really beautiful drawings. It’s not quite Gris, but hey, at least it’s not Gris. There’s a real feeling of visual poetry here, made all the better by the complete lack of dialogue. It’s pretty short, coming in around one to two hours, which is just about perfect for the tone.

• Mojiken / Toge Productions
• £6/€7/$8

All Buried Treasure articles are funded by Patreon backers. If you want to see more reviews of great indie games, please consider backing this project.