WGAME REVIEWG
ris is beautiful. It is beautiful in
that highly stylised, minimalist
way that works well in both 2D
platformers and in art prints. It is
beautiful in its carefully chosen
color palettes and its delicate
animation effects. However it is
beautiful in ways that both strengthen
and weaken it as an overall experience.
Gris is a 2D platforming mood piece
about navigating grief. You play as a
nimble, blue-haired girl, and you must
gradually bring color and life back to
a world of monochrome ruins. To do
this, the girl must jump, float, swim,
and slam her way through stunning
environments, collecting glowing lights
and adding them to the sky above a hub
area as constellations.
Tonally, Gris inhabits the same
arena as Journey, Abzu, Unravel,
Flower... perhaps Monument Valley
too, although not as closely due to
the latter’s puzzle elements. Gris isn’t
a puzzler, it’s a platformer with a
set of interactions which feel geared
around sensory pleasure—you end up
luxuriating in its environments and
effects, or enjoying the smoothness of a
set of movements.
To give an example, clusters of red
butterflies boost your jumps. In another
game this boost might feel like part of
a toolkit for exploration, but Gris has
generally linear progression. At that
point, the boost isn’t a tool it’s part of
the level’s built-in choreography.
As an exploration of grief, or an
emotional journey, Gris finds mixed
success. Its determination to be
beautiful is a problem, as it means the
ugly and destructive sides of grief or
loss are absent.
The closest you get in terms of what
the girl can do is the ability to turn her
cloak into a heavy cube and use it to
smash vases, punch through floors,
or plummet deeper into the water. It’s
destructive, sure, but also controlledand purposeful. The wilder, scarier side
of grief is cut off from her; cauterized
in favor of fluid, deliberate action. It’s
perhaps found in some of the shadowy
creatures pursuing her, but that’s
external rather than internal.
The other problem is that the grief is
never effectively localised to a particular
person. Is the girl the one grieving, or
is it her companion (she seems to be
the one shattered into pieces)? Being
ambiguous isn’t a problem, but I felt
unable to read the basic coherently.PAINTING A PICTURE
This next paragraph is a spoiler so skip
ahead if that’s your jam.
Another issue I have is that the
ending of the game is positive; a
reunification of sorts. I find it to be a
stumbling block when considering Gris
as a representation of grief. It’s tooWHY
SHOULD
I CARE?+ You find beauty
in loss.
+ You want art in
your games.
+ You want to
know how it ends.Gris
Painterly platformer aims to explore grief.
DEVELOPERNOMADA STUDIO • PUBLISHERIN-HOUSE
http://www.nomada.studioShifts in palette
accompany shifts
in mood.VERDICT:
Gris’s visual appeal
hinders as much as it
helps its attempted
exploration of the
grief process. 7neat; a manifestation of the idea that
grief ends when I don’t believe it ever
does. One of the best descriptions of
grief I’ve ever heard is about how grief
is not a specific feeling, but a reckoning
with what can’t be undone.
Gris is beautiful, but that beauty
means it’s only capable of touching on
some of the facets of loss. It manages
some of the sense of being at the mercy
of the outside world. The way it plays
with scale shifts your focus from the girl
to the world and back again; a tool for
simulating numbness or distance.
But it can’t do the same for rage or
guilt or the way your insides seem to be
absent sometimes. The beauty gets in
the way there. The overall effect for me
ends up being elegant but detached. A
slightly muddled compendium of the
picturesque sides of grief.
PHILIPPA WARRDE BLOB
Pickuppaintandsmearthecity
withcolorbytouchingit with your
character’s body.THE UNFINISHED SWAN
Fireblobsofinkintoaplainwhite
world to reveal the 3D landscape.SPLATOON
Nintendo’s third-person shooter
swaps bullets for ink which covers the
play area.HUE
Changethebackgroundcolorofthe
world to reveal or hide objects and
solve puzzles.COLOUR
IN