The Almost Gone's point-and-click personal history doesn't work Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. The Almost Gone's point-and-click personal history doesn't work But that doesn't mean you can't tell stories with puzzles. Feature by Oli Welsh Contributor Published on 26 Jun 2020 2 comments Stylish isometric visuals, venerable point-and-click puzzle design and a brooding tale of family tragedy are hitched more than a little awkwardly together in The Almost Gone, a new morsel of misery from Belgian developer Happy Volcano. Fragmentary explorations of memory and loss are fashionable these days, but Kentucky Route Zero this ain't. That is, perhaps, an unfair comparison. The games have different roots; Cardboard Computer's rambling, surreal slice of Americana is a gorgeously illustrated text adventure, a purely narrative experience. The Almost Gone is fundamentally a puzzle game, a work of graphic design and logic chains, with a tale of trauma written over and around it. (The game's official site features a statement from writer Joost Vandecasteele admitting that his job was to "inject" a story into the atmosphere conjured by Happy Volcano's art.) And that's the problem; the pathos it lunges for, often clumsily, is unearned. The Almost Gone is narrated by a disembodied voice, apparently of a young girl, as you and she explore her surroundings: a detailed but imperfect reconstruction of the house she grew up in, the street she lived on, and other locations from her family history. The illusion is broken and incomplete; tree branches grow through rooms, the pages of books are blank and some houses are just empty façades, like movie sets. These locations are divided up into small, tidy isometric portions which you can flick between, rotate and prod at with a pointer. (Navigating the game on Switch was fiddly and laggy; I suspect it plays more naturally in its Steam and mobile versions.) The art is the most striking and successful thing about the game - the way it disrupts the clean, undisturbed lines of an architect's drawing to expose the unease and subjective human messiness beneath. Sometimes - not as often as I would like - solving the puzzles involves rotating the scene until you can see behind the curtain, as it were, and pry into hidden aspects of the world. I can't say I warmed as much to the puzzles themselves, which seemed a rather clunky throwback to the cause-and-effect chains of the LucasArts adventures of the late 80s and early 90s. Occasionally, they depend on total non-sequiturs (presumably explained away by the game's dream logic) and too often devolve into mindless clicking around and trying every permutation of lock and key. When the designers try to dovetail them with the miserable beats of Vandecasteele's story, the results are so on the nose as to be unintentionally hilarious - like the wedding cake that divides neatly in half, splitting the the figures of the couple that top it, and revealing a pregnancy test inside. What could it mean? The font size is far too small for the Switch's screen. Worse, though, is the script itself. Perhaps something has been lost in translation to English, but the way this dark personal history has been expressed is clod-hopping and clichéd. With so much tragedy and trauma loaded into such a short game, it feels not so much like a story that Vanecasteele or Happy Volcano really felt the need to tell, as like a grim use of personal trauma as a selling point. Moreover, I just don't think this kind of writerly intervention is necessary. Happy Volcano should have the confidence that puzzle games can tell stories innately - whether it's the gentle, meaningful reassemblies of UsTwo's Assemble With Care or the dense thought experiment of Jonathan Blow's extraordinary The Witness. Let the puzzles speak for themselves; you might be surprised at how much they have to say. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. 12 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 34 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store