Photography, movie, poetry (why not?)...
Trauma is a very different and interesting game, where you travel through four dreams of a girl in a hospital, after a road accident. You travel by clicks and mouse gestures - like road lights in motion - in still worlds/dreams made of photographs and short cinematics.

You're are searching for one of the four ways to leave these dreams, one uncovering part of a cinematic of that girl at the hospital, three more additional ends for each dream, and a collection of polaroid photos, uncovering tips and little insights for the girl's past and thoughts.

It is not a great story, but the mood is mysterious and cool.
Created on Flash for web, so you can't expect great graphics resolutions and resources, but it still an unique experience.

This was a fun little game. Not very long, not overly complex or maddenly difficult...just a nice little journey though a trauma victim's memories and impressions. Gameplay is essentially point and click for navigation, and you learn to create these "symbols" (performed with mouse-based gestures) that have generic purposes (e.g., directional controls) and in some cases can be used in less-than-obvious (but usually clever) applications. A modicum of replayability is achieved via multiple solutions/endings to each chapter, and by finding all of the "polaroids" thoughout.

If you're worried about bang-for-the-buck, then get it on sale like I did. Take a look at the screenshots to see if you like the photographic art style. It's certainly not for everybody. But if you're looking for something simple and explorative, a touch psychological, with some light puzzle elements, then it might be for you.

Trauma is pretty much a point-and-click kind of game, the cool concept that this game offers is that you move through photos in 4 different scenarios, it's very experimental and it tells the story about a woman who had an accident (car crash).
The game is very easy and you can figure everything quickly, but the real beauty is hidden behind the elements of the photos, the 'story' itself.
The idea, like I said before, is very cool and I would recommend this game for photography and cinema fans since it explores the meanings behind the composition.

This game is great. Without getting deep into it, this game captures a touching story that is somewhat left to interpretation. The gameplay isn't very exciting or great, but it doesn't take away from the experience or the story.

I would recommend this game to anyone who doesn't mind clicking around to hear a well made, emotional story.

It's an interesting idea, at least.

The game looks interesting and the gimic of moving around from photo to photo while using magic symbols to interact with the game's world has some potential. The art and photography is appealing, especially when it suddenly does something weird, like suddenly sucking up a random billboard or shattering a ghost. It's imagery is a strong aspect.

It's just that it has no overal point.

At best, the game is cryptic. At worst, the game has nothing to say. As a jaunt into someone's dreams and psyche, you'd think you'd come away learning a great deal about that person, right? I couldn't find any value to that assumption. Most of the details given about this woman's identity as a character don't ever appear to connect. She went to Uni, she went to a coffee shop once, she had a teddy bear.

Why should I care?

It doesn't necessarily connect or amount to any revelation about the character. There's no real coherrence about this towards any real goal. It's just weirdness from beginning to end. I'm sure it's the point; to allow for your own interpretation of what to make of all this but I struggle to find that satisfying. It doesn't seem to justify it's own existance by offering any conclusion to take from the journey made.

Perhaps this is meant to be from the point of view of the Doctor tending to this woman? It would explain the tiny amount of information we gleam from her dreams and bits of information from them, only to have the game end abruptly.

What drags this still lower in my opinion is how boring the gameplay is.

One of the larger flaws is how entertaining the game is. The 'puzzles' are no more advanced than find a thing and perform a special symbol on it to get something to happen. Nothing amounts to anything more than just an alternative ending. That also seems to be weirdness for weirdness' sake. If you learn what does what and what will only work with what, your only challenge is to spot what looks interactive and what isn't. This is not all that hard either. If you can be bothered, you'll breeze through this within an hour and a half.

If you like weird things, you won't feel too bad if you get it during a sale. Otherwise, it's not that remarkable. For a flash game this bland, it feels overpriced. Go play one of the weirder looking things on Armour Games. It's free and likely more entertaining than this.