Solve puzzles and outwit robots in a story about two friends fighting to stay together in a fairy tale version of Warsaw in World War II.
My Memory of Us
Developer: Juggler Games
Price: 17.99
Platforms: PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
When a young girl in a bookstore finds half a photograph hidden in a book, she takes it to the bookstore’s owner, who sits down to tell her about his childhood, his friendship with the girl in the photograph, and how their lives changed when Hitler the Evil King invaded and their home was occupied by Nazis robot soldiers.
Yes, although it’s told as a fairy tale with an evil robot army, My Memory of Us is based on true stories about the German occupation of Poland. It even includes some historical figures, such as Janusz Korczak, who managed an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. The game starts before the invasion, giving the player time to know the characters and gameplay in friendlier settings. Then the robots invade and mark the girl as one of the “red folk,” the boy sneaks into the ghetto to stay with her, and the two children do their best to help the people around them even though they don’t fully understand what’s going on.
Gameplay largely focuses on solving puzzles using the two protagonists’ abilities to progress through its 2.5D environments and achieve the current goal. The boy can sneak and reflect light to blind enemies, while the girl can run and use a slingshot to hit distant switches. You often control the two as a pair, but many times you’ll need them to split up to solve the puzzles. These range from pulling levers to figuring out passwords to using the robots’ machines against them so you can outwit their security.
“In fact, I’m impressed by how well it achieves the surreal balance between showing childlike innocence and respectfully portraying a dark era of history.“
Puzzle-solving is when the gameplay is at its best. I enjoyed experimenting to figure out how their skills could get me past the obstacles at hand. There are also stealth sections, where you’ll need to sneak past enemies without being seen. While not as good as the puzzle-solving, it’s not bad. The occasional action-oriented sections, aren’t nearly as enjoyable, but fortunately they only occur a handful of times. Each level also includes a collectible memory you can find.
The story and atmosphere are the most important parts of My Memory of Us. There is no dialogue aside from the bookstore owner’s narration (handled by Patrick Stewart), and instead characters communicate through image-based speech bubbles. Even without dialogue, it does an excellent job of conveying the friendship between the two children as their world crumbles. In fact, I’m impressed by how well it achieves the surreal balance between showing childlike innocence and respectfully portraying a dark era of history. When you pay attention to the details and background events, especially with the historical context, it can be pretty upsetting, but at the same time it has a sort of bittersweet charm.
If there’s one aspect of the story I’m conflicted about, it’s the robots. Making the Nazis emotionless machines runs the risk of implying that humans would never do these things. On the other hand, the idea of two children tricking evil robots contributes to the sense that this is a story being told to a child. Without that filter, its delicate balance might collapse–and the fairy tale atmosphere in My Memory of Us is one of the things that makes its story resonate so well.
The Final Word
While Nazi Germany’s occupation of Poland is a grim area of history to cover in a cute puzzle game, My Memory of Us respects the past and delivers a somber-yet-hopeful tale of friendship.
MonsterVine Review Score: 4 out of 5 – Good
