Dordogne is sure to win you over just by looking at it. A point-and-click adventure nestled within an impressively rendered watercolor world, it’s hard not to be amazed that we’ve come to a point where games are regularly employing art styles like this. And you should be looking at it because, after playing a brief demo with the game’s opening chapters, art is Dodogne’s greatest strength. I just hope there’s something more in the finished game to keep me interested.
Dordogne follows the story of Mimi across two time periods. In her present, it is the early ‘00s, and after a falling out with some of her family, as well as the passing of her grandmother, she’s led back to the family home in the French countryside where she once unwittingly vacationed in 1982. Before the house is sold off though, and much to the chagrin of her father in particular, Mimi sets off for the home in Dordogne, where she’s been led to believe that her grandmother left her something. Once you’re there, you begin reliving that fateful summer in 1982 and follow Mimi as a child, learning the sights and sounds of the countryside.
Much of the gameplay of Dordogne follows the Mimi of either time period solving simple point and click puzzles adapted to a cozy, domestic setting. In order to get onto the property in the first place, adult Mimi has to dislodge a mailbox before using a handy screwdriver she just happens to have to open it up and retrieve a key. Young Mimi on the other hand is just getting very uncomfortably situated at the house when we first find her, and has to manually unpack her clothes into the drawer. Though I’m a lover of tactile feels in games, some of the interactions even this early on feel forced and labored, as if they were padded out to add more traditional gameplay to Dordogne. At one point, you need to maneuver the key into the opening of a door, press and hold a button on the key to then unlock the door, and then finally press and hold the same button on the knob and hold up on an analog stick to open the door. Moments later, you have to take multiple similar steps to light a candle. Someone looking for a cozy game to bury themselves in might not worry so much about these tiny interactions, but for someone simply trying to see Dordogne through, they border on tedium.
As Mimi walks around the house and explores the countryside, she’s able to pick up words via stamps she finds (akin to last year’s Beacon Pines) which she can later incorporate into a scrapbook, which players will actively flesh out with pictures and recordings they take over the course of the summer. My demo only afforded me the camera, allowing me to record a day at the river with Mimi, her grandmother, and some air balloons nearby. In segments like this, it’s hard to deny how picturesque and magical Dordogne‘s aesthetic feels; Even I had to stop at some point and take the magnificent sights in, and it truly is a testament to the developers Un Je Ne Sais Quoi that the world functions simultaneously as an easel and environment to explore. According to a map I found, there’ll be plenty of exploring too, with multiple impressions on the map hinting at future locales Mimi and her grandmother might explore. If there’s a thing to look forward to, it’s perhaps how beautifully illustrated the rest of the world of Dordogne will be.
Unfortunately, despite how lovingly presented everything is, I was left looking for a greater hook. In the most involved bits of gameplay, outside of snapping pictures and walking around, I had to highlight certain words that’d be overlaid while I carried out an action, like unpacking or eating cereal. Depending on the choice I made, Mimi might say something different or be in an entirely different mood. However, I couldn’t tell you if that made any significant difference in the trajectory of my all-to-brief demo outside of some more words and feelings to throw into the scrapbook. Even the familial drama of the game seemed like familiar territory, and while that in and of itself is fine, the demo didn’t have time for greater development of these characters and the rifts that are supposed to come between them. Supposedly though, you will uncover why Mimi’s grandmother and father, Nora and Fabrice respectively, had a falling out in 1982 that causes Fabrice to cut Nora out of their lives. By the time Nora passes in the present, the conflict is very much unresolved, and the tensions there seems to have bled over into Mimi’s own strained relationship with her father, which doesn’t seem like it was even in a good place in 1982, let alone 2002. It has promise, even if it does feel all too typical.
Your mileage may vary when it comes to Dordogne. On paper, you’re going to get a tale of familial drama spelled out over decades amidst a beautiful, painterly French countryside. The game is unequivocally lovely to look at and I imagine it’ll warm players just enough to see its story to the end, at which point hopefully they’ll be satisfied. For me, though, there’s perhaps too little to do, and what I can do feels so drawn out and forced, that I’m not sure it’s a journey I want to take myself.
Moises Taveras is the assistant games editor for Paste Magazine. He was that one kid who was really excited about Google+ and is still sad about how that turned out.