It’s summer vacation, and everyone is sorting out where they will be for their break, not you, as you need to buckle down and study. It isn’t your fault, though, as school and you don’t mesh, plus your grandpa is on his last legs, and you have been visiting him as much as you can. But what if your grandpa had a secret, a secret he has told no one, not even your mum, his own daughter?It’s summer vacation, and everyone is sorting out where they will be for their break, not you, as you need to buckle down and study. It isn’t your fault, though, as school and you don’t mesh, plus your grandpa is on his last legs, and you have been visiting him as much as you can. But what if your grandpa had a secret, a secret he has told no one, not even your mum, his own daughter?
This is Embracelet, a story about a young man, Jesper, who is tasked with a great quest by none other than his grandpa.
Jesper is like every normal teenager, scooting through life without a care in the world doing the same thing day in day out. He goes to school, does homework, the usual stuff.
While visiting his sick grandpa at a nursing home, he is asked to check a drawer to get something for his grandpa. While searching the drawer, Jesper finds a picture of a younger version of his grandpa with a woman that isn’t his grandma. Like any curious mind, he asks, but his grandpa is more interested in him picking up a bracelet that lays under the picture. Jesper picks up the bracelet, and that’s when the real story starts.
Embracelet is, in the most simple terms, a point and click game. Players control Jesper as he explores a beautiful land south of Norway with a powerful bracelet to solve minor puzzles.
One of the first aspects players will notice about Embracelet is how beautiful it is. It isn’t beautiful graphic wise, but more the way the vibrant colours combine with the minimalist setting of the world create the perfect harmony of eye dropping beauty. It gives the sense that the island is gorgeous, but there’s nothing to do for the people living there. It provides that small island feel that only some will stay and others will leave to go onto something better, aka like real life.
The beautiful island aside, the characters, especially the main two teens, give players that same feeling: one wants to stay, and the other wants something more from life. Giving opposing sides to the same coin. Because while players need to learn about the bracelet, they also must choose between what they want Jesper to have in life by determining which of the two teens they align more with.
The story, in a sense, is linear because no matter what, there are story beats that will occur for everyone when pertaining to the story. Most would see that as a bad thing, but for me, this was a positive as it didn’t give me this false pretence that my decisions mattered overall. The choices that did matter were the mundane, the choice of who you fancied in the game’s narrative. The sense that some things had to be done while others didn’t allow the story to be told the way it needed to be told.
The sound in Embracelet also goes the minimalist way. Embracelet contains no voice actors whatsoever, but this approach works to the game’s advantage as it gives off this relaxing feel when soft music plays in the background. I am not sure if this was the idea for me to feel like I was in a mode of Zen, but if it wasn’t, I loved it anyway.
I could go on more about the story, but it would be spoiler territory if I said anything more.
Embracelet offers players a meaningful experience in a mostly real setting with a story that combines reality and truth with magic. While short, the experience will resonate with anyone that has ever lived in a small town or island.
A code for Embracelet was provided by The Indie Game Collective on behalf of Machineboy. Embracelet is available on PC, Switch, Android and IOS.… Expand
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