It's not often that a game comes along that speaks to our current events so poignantly, and yet, here we find ourselves in the midst of an unprecedented situation that calls for everyone to distance themselves from one another. While 'A Fold Apart' may be romantic in nature, the struggles inherent in maintaining and nurturing a long-distance relationship are universal to just about anyone who has at one point yearned to be closer to someone they care about.
As someone who met their partner through the internet and experienced first-hand the hurdles involved in making that work, I am quite familiar with the additional effort required in order to stay on the same page - a luxury often taken for granted by those who haven't had to be apart from their significant other for long periods of time. From what I can tell, A Fold Apart transforms these complicated matters into an identifiable yet approachable interactive experience.
Featuring over 50 hand-crafted, paper-folding puzzles, A Fold Apart's unique brand of gameplay attempts to illustrate the lengths couples must go in order to reconcile their distance and bridge the gap between their separate lives.
"When we first started developing A Fold Apart in 2015, my goal was to tell a touching story about the romantic, sentimental, but fundamentally lonely feelings that my significant other and I experienced while living apart,” explains developer Lightning Rod Games Co-founder Mark Laframboise.
"We never would have imagined that we’d be releasing the game in an environment where nearly all of us around the world are physically separated from loved ones and experiencing that loneliness firsthand. Whether you are self-isolating, distance learning, telecommuting, or keeping in touch online, we are all in one form of long-distance relationship or another. Creating A Fold Apart was a way for me to navigate those difficult emotions and I hope that the game can help others find some hope and comfort (and, most importantly, fun!) in these challenging times as well."
A Fold Apart launches on April 17th for Apple Arcade, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.
