For this week, I decided to write about something that is renowned for being short, but shouldn’t be disregarded for being so. I’m technically on holiday for the next 3 months, and will definitely continue with my weekly gaming, but they may be smaller games. Hope you enjoy reading this, and I will update this blog more regularly on my game development progress.
Gravity Bone:
Gravity Bone is a small indie game made by Blendo Games, (A one man team consisting of Brendon Chung) and when I say short, I mean 20 minutes to an hour short. This isn’t detrimental to the game in any way, just be warned and don’t be surprised when it abruptly ends.
In this short time, Brendon manages to create a narrative that would rival even the biggest of games, something that’s constantly got you questioning what’s going on and what’s the big picture. It’s certainly effective, playing from the “less is more” ideology, but can leave players feeling bummed out that they’re missing something, which is exactly as I felt until I thought it all over to write this review.
Gravity Bone consists of 2 acts: the game starts out at a party, where you have an invitation which tells you to make your way to the furnace room. It’s in here that you find that you’re actually a spy who has a job to do. You need to bring a drink to a person with red hair, whilst dressed like a waiter. This is where you discover this is indeed a game, albeit stripped to it’s core. There’s no tutorials, no set up, you just do the job the game tells you to, and get on with life.
The second act entails taking pictures of “birds”, bringing new game mechanics into play to open locked doors with your trusty hammer and freeze spray. It’s a pretty good idea, and one that allows you to figure out how to open doors yourself, with no tutorials or instructions. This second act is where the game opens up, and gives you more glimpses of story, but these are merely glimpses, meaning you need to piece it all together yourself to make sense of whats going on.
Overall Gravity Bone shows the core mechanics of a game, without bloating itself just for the hell of it. If you want to learn the core mechanics that go into building a game, play Gravity Bone, it’ll show you the way. It’s free to download and play, and will work on Mac and PC, so give it a go.
4/5
