Reflections Preview
Reflections is an exploration-focused indie adventure game, where the small choices the player makes in a regular day heavily impacts the story. The game is still in Early Access, and I have played through the demo twice, choosing different decisions along the way. You truly leave your mark on the world, as interactions with the black-and-white environment bring colour and music instead. Reflections has an intriguing premise, and while it does seem to be lacking in content now, the game is definitely something to check back on when it fully releases.
Reflections begins with the player waking up the day they are to finish packing and go to college. During my first playthrough, I had chosen no love interest, and the game took on a Gone Home-esque feel to it. You are alone, poking around in your house with your family members nowhere to be seen. You pick up clues about the story by interacting with objects, finding bits of paper, and unlocking new rooms. With a love interest chosen, however, the game does come to life more as there is another character to interact with — they are there to greet you in the living room, and the premise of the story is explained through dialogue.
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“Reflections has an intriguing premise, and while it does seem to be lacking in content now, the game is definitely something to check back on when it fully releases.”
As you progress, Reflections always carries a sense of transition. During the first phase, you are packing to go to college, and in the second phase, you are renovating your childhood home. You are given 20-30 minutes to explore and get as much done as you’d like before the game moves on.
I highly enjoyed the sense of discovery my first playthrough granted me, as I noticed the empty closet and boxes scattered about the house. Interacting with the different objects in the world cause it to burst with colour, and once you’ve explored everything in a room, the walls colourize as well. This immediately made me go back to rooms I only partially explored to watch how those changed as well.
I inferred that the character was to leave for college, and noticed her mother’s phone number stuck to the fridge. As I was exploring, I tried to call the number using the kitchen phone. To my surprise, the mother answered, and some one-sided dialogue played out before the call ended. While this could have been done better, I do have hopes for more surprises such as this in the full game.
In the second phase of the game, ten years have passed, and you find that nothing in the house is as you left it. You try calling your mother, and no one answers. Now, simply interacting with the world no longer causes it to bloom with colour. The house is undergoing renovation, and you walk into the living room to find dozens of paint cans.
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“As the colours blended together, I fully appreciated how Reflections was a methodical, meditative experience.”
Of course, I threw every mix of colours onto the walls just because I could. Once I painted the majority of the wall, the rest filled in with a little thrum of music. As the colours blended together, I fully appreciated how Reflections was a methodical, meditative experience. It encourages the player to explore and experiment, to have a little patience and use their imagination. Whereas I painted the first time around, the second time through I played horseshoes and built a porch out back.
While the premise is solid, the controls leave something to be desired. They are not as smooth as I would like; I found the game didn’t track my mouse very well and that picking up objects was often very clunky. As for the visuals, the colourize effect is easily the game’s best quality, adding something magical to an otherwise realistic game.
I played through Reflections twice and received different endings. The first time I meandered through the game and I apparently died alone with regrets, but the second time I got more done and received a happier ending. This game says it is about hidden choices, and my experience reflects that. I don’t exactly know how I got the different ending, but I had explored more and made my different decisions. While there is not a lot of content so far, I can see that there are many endings planned out, promising a measure of replayability. With the game still in Early Access, there is plenty of room for improvement, and Reflections is something to look into when it is completed.
*** PC code provided by the publisher ***
