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The Spanish developers from Nomada Studio clearly wanted to stand out from the crowd with their debut project. The spectacular visuals of the platforming game itself mean a lot, but the creators of Gris managed to make the game an example of modern art. Or did they give their creativity the form of a game? Gris is the case when you want to enjoy the game, giving it your time and plunging into the emerging feelings. A story told with watercolors and sounds does not particularly require textual accompaniment.
Download Gris for iPhone and iPad (App Store)
Download Gris for Mac (Mac App Store)
The opening video shows us a girl singing on a huge stone hand and losing her voice. Together with him, her support collapses. The girl falls and slowly wanders somewhere, we try to start controlling her, but instead of jumping, our character only falls. Feelings of sadness and grief appear immediately. But soon Gris finds the strength to run through lifeless, but clearly detailed traced locations. The description of the game explains the situation to us – the naive Gris found herself in her own world, hiding there from the pain that pursues her in reality. Obviously, we have to help the girl get stronger emotionally and teach her to see the world differently, giving it not even new, but forgotten colors. It is no coincidence that the name of the heroine was chosen – translated from Spanish it means “gray”.
In the surreal world of Gris, the transition between locations is carried out along the star bridge. It is also required to build it anew each time, looking for shining spheres located in secluded places. Gradually, the heroine acquires new skills: double jump, swimming, hovering in the air, and her singing will make hidden mechanisms work. And even the girl’s dress becomes her indispensable tool, turning into a heavy cube.
The locations are quite diverse and force you to use new skills. If at first Gris just runs through the gray desert and jumps up the stairs, then in the underwater kingdom she will already have to dive, in the transcendental palace to control gravity, and in the world upside down, we will need to use spatial thinking. At the same time, the locations are also acquiring their own color, obviously, to match the mood of Gris. One of the locations is generally hopelessly black, but who can reproach the girl for such feelings?
The platformer can hardly be called heavy, forcing you to masterfully control the hero. Fans of clever puzzles may even get a little bored. There are places in Gris that you will have to think about passing, but usually a couple of minutes is enough for this. And you can’t die in the game. Falling down from any height will occur on a bridge or a fountain, and Gris’s dress saves, like a parachute. Flying axes, acid ditches and shooting enemies could not have been in this kind, thoughtful meditative game. And the monsters encountered do not attack the girl and do not pose a danger.
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The animators from Nomada Studio managed to create a fabulous, beautiful and conceptual world. It is he who is the foundation on which the game is built. Without this clearly lovingly and carefully crafted picture, Gris would simply have gone unnoticed and impersonal. The game has many elements that attract the attention of aesthetes: glass palaces, exquisite staircases, dark tunnels, watercolor sky. The animators paid the required attention to details and small strokes.
At the same time, the drawn world is conceptual and surreal. But this makes us look for metaphors, hints and hidden symbols in it, thinking it out. So we are invited to shape our story of Gris’s experiences and dive deeper into her feelings. I want to interpret what is happening to the girl. It is not difficult to see in history the motives of overcoming, resurrection and purification. But these ideas are smeared across the gameplay, which can be perceived as an author’s movie. The final scene will deservedly become the highest emotional point.
The second major component of success is the atmospheric and meditative soundtrack from the Berlinist group. Gris’s journey is accompanied by sounds of piano, organ, violins and crystal chimes. All this only adds to the feeling of magic from what is happening with Gris.
The game Gris can be called a rare representative of the art therapy genre that suddenly appeared in games. The heroine’s journey in abundance gives light feelings and visually touches, no worse than the paintings in a museum. Gris shows how depression can be overcome by falling and getting up, crying with pain and joy. It is no coincidence that most critics assess the game positively, claims to it are connected only with passivity, simplicity and a bias in visual design to the detriment of activity. But art also evokes different feelings in everyone, and Gris can really be considered a bright creation that gives and reveals emotions.
Download Gris for iPhone and iPad (App Store)
Download Gris for Mac (Mac App Store)
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