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I didn't know that I needed this game, but I needed this game.
Back in December, I bought a bunch of games that I normally wouldn't buy. GRIS was one of them.
Thematically, GRIS is a game that begin with downfall, hopelessness, grief, depression, and sorrow. The rest of the game is climbing out of that sorrow. That's amazing for a platformer and a puzzle solver.
This game is so beautiful, so stylized, so serene that my wife just stayed with me for a while and watched me play. She never watches such games, but she watches this one. She sucked through her teeth every time she saw Gris fall.
Falling is okay. It's among the first things that you learn. You fall and you get back up. There is no judgement.
There are some platforms that only appear once you jump. They're like trust falls. You leap into that trust. You trust that the sequence will lead you someone.
The world itself begins as monochrome, but as you reach points of intense grief, a single color returns to the world, adding to the pallet.
Every mechanic seems to lend itself to these emotional and social concepts.
And there are no words. The game just trusts you. It trusts you to figure out what to do and where to go. Sometimes it introduces a concept, but it does so in such context that you're barely aware of the introduction.
While some parts of the game depend on speed and timing, most don't. In many places, you simply travel, through all these amazing scenes, resting between puzzles. You get to rest.
The soundtrack is low key, understated, and intense as required. Its always saying that the game continues, as it will, at your own pace, with your own requirements.
I don't think that I've written a game review after just one day before, but this was noteworthy. In these troubled days, I feel grief, sorrow, anger, and a host of other emotions. I need the time to be with them.
Back in December, I bought a bunch of games that I normally wouldn't buy. GRIS was one of them.
Thematically, GRIS is a game that begin with downfall, hopelessness, grief, depression, and sorrow. The rest of the game is climbing out of that sorrow. That's amazing for a platformer and a puzzle solver.
This game is so beautiful, so stylized, so serene that my wife just stayed with me for a while and watched me play. She never watches such games, but she watches this one. She sucked through her teeth every time she saw Gris fall.
Falling is okay. It's among the first things that you learn. You fall and you get back up. There is no judgement.
There are some platforms that only appear once you jump. They're like trust falls. You leap into that trust. You trust that the sequence will lead you someone.
The world itself begins as monochrome, but as you reach points of intense grief, a single color returns to the world, adding to the pallet.
Every mechanic seems to lend itself to these emotional and social concepts.
And there are no words. The game just trusts you. It trusts you to figure out what to do and where to go. Sometimes it introduces a concept, but it does so in such context that you're barely aware of the introduction.
While some parts of the game depend on speed and timing, most don't. In many places, you simply travel, through all these amazing scenes, resting between puzzles. You get to rest.
The soundtrack is low key, understated, and intense as required. Its always saying that the game continues, as it will, at your own pace, with your own requirements.
I don't think that I've written a game review after just one day before, but this was noteworthy. In these troubled days, I feel grief, sorrow, anger, and a host of other emotions. I need the time to be with them.
