Something I’ve been working on in therapy a lot throughout the past ten years is my inability to let go of things and, more importantly, people. Yet there is an inevitability about relationships ending, no matter how strong those bonds might have been initially. I’m not saying everyone will leave in the end, but there will always be people who you drift away from. Does that make the relationship any less important or true? That’s something Pieced Together, the debut title by Glowfrog Games, explores in a beautiful way.
You play as Connie, a 30-something who, at the start of the game, begins writing a letter to her former best friend Beth. Beth is someone who was around when Connie was at a particular low point in her life, having moved to a new city as a teenager. We quickly learn that writing that letter isn’t such an easy task: we begin over and over and over again, struggling to find the right words. But what has brought us to this point?
That’s where the true genius of this game comes through, as we learn all about Connie and Beth’s friendship through the wonderful art of scrapbooking. We do this in chronological order and start out with Connie’s move to a new city and, with that, her life at a new school. When Connie has a birthday party soon after her move, none of her classmates show up, except for Beth. We’re not just told about this, but instead, we gather the pieces and stitch them together ourselves by putting things like invitation slips and pictures into our scrapbook.
The action of scrapbooking is an absolute joy in Pieced Together. Yes, we’re supposed to fit the right pieces on the right pages, but there’s so much freedom in how you organise those pages, being able to turn your pictures any angle you want them and adding stickers you can collect just for fun. This means that no two players’ scrapbooks will be the same, and having your own unique scrapbook really makes you connect with the story even more. The only sad thing is when you finish the game, you can’t look back at your scrapbook, which is something I hope might still be changed after release.
There is also a lot of variety in how the actual scrapbooking works. Often it’s just a case of getting the right items on the right pages, but the game also introduces gentle puzzles, like figuring out an exam schedule or answering quizzes by using study notes. You even get to explore the Paris catacombs in one particularly fun puzzle, all through your scrapbook. It keeps the game fresh at all times, even if repetition wouldn’t have mattered that much with the game only lasting a couple of hours, so I really appreciate the developers making this much of an effort.
The true star of Pieced Together is its writing, though. I feel like this will particularly be enjoyed by people who love games like Unpacking, with this one very much focused on the little moments between people. We explore everything from Connie’s viewpoint, from her arrival in the city back in the nineties and throughout all of her and Beth’s friendship. We discover how they have helped each other grow as people, how their bond seemed inseparable for a long time, but also how life gets in the way of even the strongest of relationships.
It’s beautiful to see how both Connie and Beth are written as fully developed people. They have their own personalities, their own hopes and wishes, and their own talents. They might be incredibly close, but in the end they’re still two separate humans. It could have been easy to not pay any attention to that, with the game completely being from one perspective, but Connie apparently realises these differences enough as well, making her more likeable as a protagonist.
Despite its short length, Pieced Together takes its time to explore the relationship between the two girls and to build up towards the breaking point that might tear them apart. If anything, it would have been nice to spend more time with them after that specific point in their story, as the final part of the game feels like a bit of a montage of how they drifted apart. It still works, and it gets the point across rather well of how the passage of time just seems to speed up, but it made me sad to suddenly feel kind of distant from the people I had just grown close to.
Maybe that’s an intentional thing, though. Maybe it’s teaching me about letting go as well through creating this distance. It’s something I always struggle with, be it in games or other media. But as both Connie and Beth move on, maybe I should do the same, while still keeping a space in my heart for both of them. My time with them was special, and I loved being able to give these memories a kind of physical space by putting it all down in a scrapbook, and maybe that’s enough. Maybe the past belongs in the past, while I belong in the present, carrying my memories with me and allowing those to make me a better human being going forward.
