Broken

Although one would assume it would the first thing we manage to perfect over so many millennia, people have yet to figure out a way to coexist in peace. Besides wars and all the other horrible things people do in large groups, there’s a lot of violence and hate between individuals as well. Hence, domestic abuse is still a huge issue around the world, and it’s a pretty vicious cycle.

Broken is a weird dating sim designed for the Meatly Jam, in which the developers try to remind people about domestic violence and emotional abuse. Although it doesn’t start like a depressing game, given all the bright colors and cheerful characters, things take a turn for the worse soon after that, leaving you sad and even annoyed, depending on whether you had any similar experiences.

As such, you play with what appears to be a sentient teddy bear that you get to name in the beginning, whose best friend is a pink alpaca. Soon after that the bear makes a new friend, the rabbit, who invites him to dinner. Naturally, things get serious and the two of them end up in a relationship, which seems pretty dandy at first. However, the rabbit starts getting way too jealous and possessive, making life pretty difficult for the bear.

It’s worth mentioning that the game features other difficult subjects as well, such as suicide and even murder. Everything is included for the sake of the narrative and in order to provide the gamers with a realistic depiction of such cases, but some scenes might still affect you if you are not prepared to deal with them. There’s nothing you can do to prevent them from happening either.

As for the graphics, the game plays like a classic visual novel, in the sense that you only get to switch between a couple of backgrounds and that’s about it. Every now and again you get to make a choice, but don’t expect too much variety. It’s not meant to be a long and complicated story, on the other hand, so it’s not a huge problem in this case.

In the end, Broken can be pretty shocking if it takes you by surprise, which is great if you are not easily brought down by depressing stories. However, it might affect certain individuals, so you better make sure that you can handle themes like suicide and domestic abuse.