Frank & Drake calls itself a modern gothic story, and it certainly is that—but it’s also a loving, twisting tale of personal connections. Clocking in at just over four and a half hours (at least that’s about how long my first playthrough took, spread over several days), the team at developer Appnormals has managed to deliver a heartfelt reflection on the flaws that keep us from being accommodating to others, and the small moments of kindness to ourselves and those around us that brighten our lives.
I’ve spent most of my adult life in a city. I know the graffiti on the back streets, the quiet roads, and the flickering lights in the wide alleys. It’s a mood the game captures well, reminding me of nights spent standing in an alley near my home, looking at the neon lights of a bar, listening to the loud music inside as if it were a hymn. I know how deep our connections run here, even when they feel superficial. People look out for one another. Neighbors accept mail, check on those they know live alone, keep an eye on the familiar paths we always see someone take, and worry if one day they’re no longer there.
Frank and Drake illustrate this shared awareness of others in loving detail.
Between the hours
The story revolves around two characters: the eponymous Frank and Drake. Frank can cope in daylight and has memory problems, Drake is (literally) allergic to the sun and can only go out at night. After Drake moves in, they communicate solely through sticky notes on the fridge. Through this, their relationship develops, moving from curiosity to caring as Frank and Drake begin to take on the burden of each other’s problems. This eventually unites them as they work toward the same goal. Something is going on in Oriole City, and both want to find out what.
I know the graffiti in the back streets, the quiet streets, and the flickering lights in the wide alleys. It’s a mood the game captures well, reminding me of nights spent standing in an alley near my home, looking at the neon lights of a bar and listening to the loud music inside as if it were a hymn.
We follow this branching mystery by alternating between the two’s perspectives, Drake at night and Frank during the day. Through their “ships passing each other in the night” style of living together, we learn what each of them is missing physically and mentally, and slowly get closer to understanding why.
The game’s art style uses rotoscoping, which overlays animations over real-world movement, which is brought to life by the animations and made more personal by the simple color and lighting. Movement is heavy, even in something as simple as thoughtfully raising a hand to pull a post-it note off the fridge after a restless sleep. These moments of movement are indicated by pressing the arrow keys in certain scenes, and are almost meditative in their slowness. Take a moment, the game seems to say, relax in the process.
The music moves between burgeoning lo-fi and smooth jazz, reflecting the calming feel of the game itself. It’s decidedly brooding and moody, but that fits the nature of the game’s mystery, which takes some darker turns. I played Frank and Drake mostly at night, which felt appropriate to me, and occasionally caught a glimpse of my own city’s skyline. It’s a game with a calming tune, a mystery to solve, and one that’s edgy but never brutal.
There’s a lot to be learned from Frank and Drake, too. It doesn’t really hold your hand. Sometimes I find myself sleepwalking through games a bit, pressing buttons to progress without really thinking about it, but this game requires more focus. Not by being loud and explosive and direct, but by silently asking you to put the pieces together. You move through the numerous puzzles without a real roadmap, but they’re simple enough that a bit of thoughtfulness can go a long way toward solving what might otherwise be frustrating in a hurry. There was a small puzzle I had to solve as Drake to create constellations, and I later realized that these shapes matched a pamphlet I had on hand for reference. I didn’t know it at the time, but these tiny moments of realization are directly tied to the narrative, even if they’re not always obvious.
At first I thought this was a downside (there were a few places where I was left stumped and wondering what to do next), but I also realized it was user error in some ways: I was demanding that the game tell me everything when I should have been paying attention to what it was trying to tell me.
Longing for more
Frank spends his time chasing his own ghosts. There’s something despondent about that – like he knows he may never catch them. Drake, on the other hand, grudgingly fights through his problems, haunted by actual ghosts but regretting the fact that they’re even there. These are characters who have been through a lot, but still exude kindness and willingness to help, even if it’s just to escape their own chaos. I improved their relationship pretty quickly, moving them into the Confidant category on the third day of a 6-day period, mostly because it felt like the game’s natural inclination.
You can choose your direction, most days you have two options, sometimes more, and those actions affect the end of the story. I only got to one ending, but it left me so intrigued that I want more of it. I’m sure there’s a lot more to explore, but even so, I enjoyed the sparser aspects of the game’s narrative. Some of the stories told or hinted at remain more elusive, but the art behind it – and the way it conveys those feelings – through Art – Give meaning and dynamism to the unknown so that we may come to our own conclusions.
I demanded that the game tell me everything, even though I should have paid attention to what it was trying to tell me.
The development team has done a great job with the story of Frank and Drake, from the lovingly crafted soundtrack to the intimacy of the art style. Each playthrough offers a different set of options, the branching networks told daily through a small piece of paper. And there are many small communicators in the game, between post-its, memories, haunted stories and diaries, that allow us to look deeper into these characters despite the game’s brevity. Frank and Drake gives us glimpses into other lives, reads like a love letter to urbanity, and reminds us that good people are all around us.
SUPERJUMP received a review code for this game.
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