Bringing out a brand new puzzle mechanic isn’t an easy feature to create, but Lightning Rod Games managed to bring something unique to puzzle gamers in their game A Fold Apart. Giving the story itself the glamour of being held together in a visual novel and then breaking up the path in a way for players to put them together themselves by literally folding the pages was an interactive way to connect players to the story through gameplay. But is this new puzzle element entertaining on its own?

Story

After getting a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity, a couple is separated when one must move to a distant city. During this separation, the couple tries to make things work as a long-distance relationship, but things aren’t as easy as they seem. They will both have to overcome struggles that come due to being away from your partner and how the separation tears at their hearts.

Gameplay

Starting the game you get to pick which type of couple you think best represents your own. This was an interesting and progressive choice that was definitely a positive move on the developer’s part, making a love story reach out to people in all kinds of relationships. It isn’t obvious up front, but basically it can be any variation of male and female roles where the blue character is the architect who will move away.

The first chapter of the game shows off all the basics on how the puzzles work which is basically just folding pages. Each puzzle page will have a front and back side that will be what is used to complete the pathway to move forward. For instance, if your current path has a hole in the middle and there is a path on the edge of the back page, you would fold the path onto the back part of your pathway, move your character onto the back page platform, unfold the page, and then refold it far enough to connect the pathway to the far end to reach the exit.

You can’t fold the page past where your character is standing, but if you flip the page you can fold the page past where your character is standing. Basically, you can’t overlap your character but you can pull your character to the other side of the page. These last two aspects of the game will be the core of how most of the other aspects work.

As you progress through the game, more puzzle elements are introduced to you such as platforms that vanish when they are folded, turning the page is different directions, flipping the page on top or bottom rather than left or right, and diagonal folding. The goal and objective will always be the same, but you will just have more ways to go about getting it down. A quick note about the goal, it isn’t always the pathway itself but rather a star that signifies the desired goal location to continue the story.

Other than messing with the paper itself, there are cubes that you will have to push around or bring to a specific spot. These cubes help you climb up to higher locations and can sometimes come in clumps bigger than you need, so cube and character placement management are a factor for these puzzles. Just like the cube, characters don’t take any fall damage, but a cube can’t fall on a character. If this happens, it resets the puzzle for you.

Leading into each level you will have the character you are playing as go through a series of text with the significant other. Here you can make choices on what your response will be, but they don’t affect the story itself - just how the conversation plays out. The levels actually start when the character receives a text that upsets or angers them, which anybody who has had a long-distance relationship knows that it is really easy to get those feelings thanks to the stress of separation.

Visuals

I really like how it shows a comic book style art to the story line. You can see a visual representation of the character’s location and their feelings for it in the scenery alone. An aspect that I enjoyed after every puzzle completion is how the next part of the level just folds out for you to walk on, giving a real comic book progression feeling.

Sounds

Throughout the entire game, you will be listening to peaceful music. There are some sound effects that go with key moments, but you will mostly just hear a pretty awesome musical score that keeps your mind at ease even when struggling with a puzzle.

Replayability

I did try out some of the game using a different couple set up and found that it is exactly the same with just a different gender in the role I used for my first run. So, unfortunately, there isn’t much reason to go back through the game other than reading the other ways the text stories play out, but they don’t affect the overall story progression either way.

What Could Be Better

It does feel like they missed out on a lot of opportunities with this game. The unique puzzle mechanic seemed to constantly get new aspects and styles to it, but the last chapter didn’t feel like it all came together as one big finale challenge before the couple could be together once again. I was hoping to see a chapter of insane puzzles that included all of the elements, but the last chapter wasn’t even the hardest one for me to get through. For a puzzle game, the last chapter should be the hardest and take the most time for the player to get through.

Having a choice-based text sequence, but not having it affect the storyline or anything also seems like a missed opportunity. You could have had at least two different endings, if not multiples. What if you made bad text choices and end up hurting the relationship further making it fail at the end? Obviously, you are hoping they make it through this and end up together, but if you are going to throw a mechanic that lets players make choices then give them the chance to mess up with those choices.

Conclusion

A Fold Apart is both entertaining and unique! I love being introduced to brand new mechanics and seeing them utilized well in games. The game itself does feel short, almost too short, and that is likely due to the opportunities missed that I mentioned above. Even so, it was an experience I am happy to have gone through and hope to see more like this from this team.