5 reviews
A Bird Story
A Bird Story is a simple, surreal short about a boy and a bird with a broken wing. Its sole purpose is to tell a story, and can be viewed as a narrative/animation with interactivity -- but without a line of dialogue. It is a standalone game with its own beginning and endings; but for those who's played To the Moon, the boy eventually grows up to be...
Details
- Released
- November 6, 2014
- Developer
- Freebird Games
- Publisher
- Freebird Games
- Platforms
- PC
How it plays
Time to beat · 6 player times (IGDB)
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A Bird Story Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
And yet beneath the mis-steps and the schmaltz, and beneath the dictatorial heft of the soundtrack - gorgeous and emotive, but laid on a little too heavily throughout - there's still that fascinating glimpse of a boy making the best of a lonely childhood. A boy in search of escape - escape from the empty world he's been granted and, perhaps, from the predictable narrative that's been imposed on it.
With its focus on visual narrative, A Bird Story challenges many of the ideas of basic game design, sometimes in ways that limit player freedom. But its amazing attention to visual detail, laser-focused narrative beats, and evocative soundtrack make it a neat, tightly-constructed story that says much without ever saying anything at all.
The game portrays a story rather well, despite being a game developed in RPG Maker
The sentimental, dull, superficially interactive story isn’t worth a few cute moments and some interesting surrealism.
It’s a game that doesn’t want to be played, and when it resentfully lets you, it’s slow and clumsy as if in revenge. There may well be some who connect with it, and for them I am genuinely delighted. I suspect they will be few. Let’s hope the true To The Moon sequel it awkwardly teases at the end, Finding Paradise, can live up to the extraordinarily well-deserved reputation Kao earned himself. Then we can pretend this one didn’t happen.