Gris

I stumbled onto Anodyne, from stumbling upon its remix album which aivisura did a song for.  While looking around on Steam for more games to fill out my shopping cart I remembered Gris.

Gris has been out for some time, so I looked to some reviews to verify what I thought of it.  It seemed like the most belovedly visually stunning art piece of a platformer...that unfortunately lacked substance.  Some reviews claimed that the platforming gameplay seemed a bit out of place, as in they were complete enough to be present but not detailed enough to actually add anything to the experience.  Other reviews criticized the emotional "narrative" (using the term loosely as it is supposed to be an abstract journey) as being a bit too cliche and kitsch.  Seeing these thoughts made up my mind for me and I don't think I'll be buying the game.  I might watch a playthrough of it or something though.

It's tough, though, I get it.  Visual design, gameplay design, and storytelling all coming together is sort of a perfect storm type of thing and I can think of a scant few games that have even come close, let alone really achieve it all.  But at the very least I think the industry is doing a lot better than it has been in the past in that regard.  I don't think there have really been a lot of games that truly "get it" but I like the attempts that I'm seeing.

I did also snag both Dead Cells and Unavowed (two very different games), which I'm sure will both be pretty exciting to play whenever I get around to them.