Some took me hours of wandering and clicking on random things until I just happened to stumble upon the right eventuality by blind luck. Point-and-clickers are made by the logic puzzles they are built upon, and unfortunately, while some of Memoranda’s have obvious solutions, others are incredibly bizarre and obtuse. Where I’m going with this is the puzzles. This is both a blessing and a curse as interactions are thankfully brief, but there’s very little in these conversations to enlighten you as to what you need to be doing or where you should to be going. Interactions with NPCs are much more streamlined than other P&C titles: there’s no branching dialogue trees, and none of that ‘will remember’ moralising stuff, just two to three sections of dialogue and off you go again. The art style compliments this weirdness well with Mizuki’s tired, wild-eyed expression, reflecting the confusing things going on around her, and is brought to life beautifully with stilted, marionette-like animation. The world Mizuki roams is an odd one, populated with singing cats, apothecary birds and elephants wearing grandad jumpers.
To make things worse, she’s also haunted by a red-eyed old sailor who keeps her awake at night. As a result, she keeps photos around her, chronicles thoughts in her diary (here called Memoranda) and can’t leave the house without a map (giving us a convenient fast travel system). The plot follows Mizuki, a girl who has severe issues: she has memory problems which has caused her to forget her own name, where she lives and the names of her friends. Bit Byterz’s Memoranda is another to be added to the growing horde of new P&Cs, boasting a lovely painted art style and like Double Fine’s Broken Age, was funded through Kickstarter. After tailing off towards the end of the first PlayStation era, we’re now blessed with a vast range to choose from: from Telltale’s seemingly never ending output to remasters of old and much more. It’s safe to say that point-and-click games are back in a big way.
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