5/5 ★ – pflipflops's review of Mutazione.

The summer breaks of my childhood were often spent in rural Romania, visiting parts of my extended family. Little me was often more than annoyed at my parents for choosing such a comparably boring place to spent my precious school-free time (a cool summer resort with lots of water slides seemed like a much better choice!!). Nowadays however, I wish to go back, sit on cheap plastic chairs and listen to the late night chatter of the adults while eating some incredibly good watermelon. Most of my romanticism stems of course from nostalgia. It’s easy to look at the duller parts of adult life and wanting to escape to better days, when the landscapes were colorful, the food delicious and the people loving. I can’t return to those places at that time but I have my memories of them. Mutazione is a game directed by someone who somehow must have been aware of my memories and thought "What if I turn them into a weird, jungle-mutant narrative game?" Everything about it captures the feelings of a visit to a small, warm-hearted community so perfectly: From well meant but slightly annoying gossip to a quiet atmosphere of past hardships. Pair that with a simplistic but gorgeous art design set in the ruins of an island and you got a game that I can’t really judge critically. I could talk about the minimalist approach to gameplay design or the story structure or whatsoever but that’s not what I thought about when I played Mutazione. I thought about the farm of my cousins and their fields that were filled with flowers and vegetables. I thought about my grandmother and how she always tried to give us some snacks. I thought about the cramed, heavily decorated rooms, that seemed too small, too run down but were in fact beautiful. I thought about the hesistant ways the adults talked, when past tragedies were mentioned. I thought about the light, warm nights, when I never needed a blanket to sleep but still used it. I don’t know if this game sounds anymore appealing based on my "review" but I hope I expressed how much it means to me