Distortions

Distortions is a story-driven musical adventure in which a girl explores an imaginary valley made from echoes of her distorted memories. Guided by riddles in a journal, she uses a violin to alter the world, face its strange creatures and recover fragments of her past as she seeks to understand her identity and what she must leave behind to move on.

The valley and its story

The valley contains mountains, caves and rivers, along with old friends and an imminent collapse. Time seems to have stopped there. As the girl regains her memories with help from a strange masked man, she explores the valley and uncovers the mystery of her existence in this place. A second realm, the White World, coexists with the valley; you move between the two to escape masked creatures or reach otherwise inaccessible places.

Shape the world with music

The journal leads the girl to a violin. Its songs create effects such as bridges, explosions and barriers, let her become invisible, move enormous rocks and communicate with the valley. Each new piece of music provides a tool, and you learn five abilities and three ways to play the violin. You can also play freely: some places respond to particular notes, and playing with an inhabitant called The Masked One can prompt reactions from him.

The creatures require you to read your surroundings and use the abilities you have learned. Encounter spaces introduce different behaviors, so you can combine musical powers and reshape the environment to fight or escape in different ways. Some sequences require skill; you can rest in safe places and find strange white apples to restore health. You can also sail the sea and explore the land with maps, ocean-current information and geographic points to guide you.

A changing journey

The game offers more than 15 hours of gameplay and moves between first-person, side-scrolling, open-world, linear and contemplative sequences. Progression begins with a linear section that introduces the controls and basic elements, then opens into an explorable world where you choose which places to visit first and complete a few dungeons. The final part combines open-world and linear sections and contains most of the secondary missions and optional content, adding several more hours of exploration.

Music and atmosphere

The soundtrack combines licensed songs from three bands, including Brazil’s Labirinto and the United States’ Dredg, with original tracks. Ambient sound blends noise with bells, violins and guitars.