Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery takes you into the mind of an artist, looking to focus and work on her own artwork. Her day to day life is simple; she sketches, she paints, she eats and listens to music. All of this feels very relatable, until you look deeper into the world around you and discover some more of your past.
Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery is a game that I first saw at GDC, where I played around with the demo and was captivated by the beautiful world. The sound is wonderful and the cut scenes look like something out of a movie, both bringing you well into this world. At first, your days are pretty simple. You are painting a work of art in hopes of making it into an exhibition, you are writing up your resume and you are trying to get some self care in, in the form of making coffee and eating breakfast.
Notes around the room guide you a bit, but most of the game allows you to discover whatever you are looking to do next, before delivering more of the story. Your home is one full of little mysteries; paintings that are missing something, puzzle boxes that you don’t remember putting there… Your neighbor, who you can see through your window, is also a mystery; he never seems to answer you, despite painting beautiful pictures himself.
When you are creating your art, often you will drag your painted brush across areas of the canvas or sketch across portions of your sketchbook. This book ends up being a place full of clues; information on the neighbor, copies of paintings that you seem to have in your room but yours are a bit different. Slowly, you will start to unravel a story of two people, long missing from the paintings in your home, who need your help to complete their painting.
In between doing your daily routine, you discover more about yourself, about these two people, about cute cats. It’s a slightly sad story, but one well worth discovering through its meaningful puzzles and different interactions. Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery is a really captivating game, which can be completed in an afternoon, and is well worth the time you will spend playing. It’s a wonderful, well made and very well thought out game.
You can find Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery on Android, iOS and Steam.
