In going through my Instapaper reading for the day/week/month/quarter (the backlog is really that long at this point) I ran across a quick blurb about a short Flash game called Fractured over at Kill Screen Daily:

It’s a simple platformer, with a clever caveat – the 2D screen is arranged in a jumble – the whole is divided into mismatched slices and strewn across the screen. Each level presents a new maze to power through, allowing the player to naturally connect the screen shards in his/her mind until it’s obvious how to muddle through.

I decided to give it a shot and see if it was as good as it sounded while I was sitting and supervising the kids’ game time this morning. Just a bit later, I had cleared both the normal set of levels and the challenge set of levels. It’s an interesting concept for a 2D platformer; instead of messing with time or other such mechanics, it plays with your sense of location by jumbling around the display of the level and making you figure out how things are connected.

The story feels like it needs some explanation or insight—it appears to basically exist for purposes if giving you a goal, but it feels like it has some intent behind it—but it was a pleasant diversion for the morning and a neat concept.

It would be interesting to see a larger game that, à la Braid, takes this first concept and then twists it in different spatial ways to create other experiences.

Fractured is game 2 out of 52 completed for the year (more on what I’m working on playing later), and if you’re looking for a quick and satisfying diversion, I would urge you to give it a shot.