My track record with art house games is not good. Last time I stuck my neck out there for a game like this, I skewered Journey for being a pretty hiking simulator. While I love how these games approach graphics and sound in a daring manner, I generally find them to be lacking in the gameplay department. For instance, I thought Journey was nothing more than running and jumping in a world devoid of anything other than some scarf pieces and “point B”.
Based on what I’ve seen of the marketing for The Unfinished Swan, I had my concerns that the end result would be the same. Here’s a game that looks gorgeous, appears to have only one gameplay mechanic and involves a lot of walking. Did this one end up missing the mark for me as well?
Unlike Journey, this one has a very clear story behind it. Long story short, you’re a boy who enters through a mysterious door that takes you to a world where everything is white. You’re free to wander around this all-white world as is, or you can add colour to it by dousing your surroundings with globs of paint. It makes for a very striking look when you can see some definition in the world through these globs. By adding definition to the world, you’ll be in a better position to navigate through and solve any spacial puzzles along the way.
I was under the impression that this whole notion of colouring a barren world would be the entire game, but that’s not the case at all. It takes the idea of throwing a glob of fluid in different directions. For instance, in the second chapter, you toss water, which causes vines to grow. You can then use the vines to traverse through obstacles that would have been impossible to overcome otherwise. As the game progresses, these mechanics get more interesting and fun to play with. In a way, it reminds me a lot of Portal, which is a good thing.
At first, I thought the narrative was poor. The setup for the story and its progression felt really disjointed and uninteresting until it cleverly brings everything together. At that point, I was on board with everything it was feeding me.
Not to knock Journey any more than I already have, but The Unfinished Swan is an art house game that is more my speed. There’s some interesting mechanics here and the story did a better job of engaging me, even if it has the advantage of spoon-feeding the narrative rather than having to figure it out myself. Overall I enjoyed my time with it.
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In Third Person 