LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories is a game about time manipulation. It’s about changing the past to reconnect those who have lost their way.
Sometimes people need a gentle nudge in the right direction. This is a game about love.
LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories Gameplay
Before you lies an apartment building. Half of the building is in the past, and half of it is in the present. The past is denoted by black and white, while the present is displayed in color.
You can rotate the building to view its residents as children, and as adults. Although you can interact with the characters, they don’t do much in the way of physical activity. On occasion, you can direct characters to interact with an object or move somewhere else.
All of the stories are presented in a photo album. As each story progresses, you’ll get a visual of their past and present.
The start of the game is relatively simple. You’ll be given a photo of someone’s past or present, and your job is to fill in the missing picture. For example, a couple is sitting down at a dining table in the past, then when you find them by rotating the building in the present, the game will update with a new photo.
However, the puzzles aren’t always that easy. Once you’ve completed an album page, more pages, and more people will start to appear. Apartments that previously didn’t contain anything will pop up with new people and stories.
Eventually stories will start to overlap and you’ll be able to tie them together.
LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories’ Unique Concept
LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories is a beautiful concept and something which I’ve not come across before. The graphics offer a memory-like state which only adds to the warm feeling of the game.
Although the start of the game takes you through a relatively easy ride, the frustration of the puzzles often took me out of the zone. This left me feeling disconnected, which is disappointing because you really need to be connected in this kind of game.
I would repeatedly find myself rotating apartment blocks and just by chance I’d come across the right clue.
The game doesn’t offer enough longevity, either, and the controls on the Nintendo Switch were less than intuitive.
Granted, the concept is unique. And if you can spend enough time figuring the puzzles out, you may enjoy it more than I did.
Beautiful Potential
While I couldn’t get to grips with the game and involve myself as deeply as I wanted to, LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories definitely offers potential for those with more patience.
The premise of Love is really an observation of life itself. Yes, it can be painful when love has been lost, but the feeling when it has been reconnected is something beautiful.
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