Date played: February 18th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10
Another PS+ freebie, Unfinished Swan is a unique little exploration game with simple puzzle elements. It has an incredible look to it that really grabbed my attention. For the first few sections of the game, everything is completely white. I mean, the game starts and there is NOTHING on the screen except white. When a button is pressed, the character shoots out balls of black ink. These ink balls then reveal the geometry of the level. It's a really cool concept.
There's a bit of a story too. It's about a woman who loved to paint, but never completed her paintings. When she died, her orphan son was allowed to keep only one painting. He chose her favorite, "The Unfinished Swan". The game seems to take place in the kid's mind as he explores the painting. It's very dreamy and crazy, but it works rather well. The excellent ambient music helps set the mood well with it's soft xylophone chords.
I played through two areas and saw the beginning of the third. First, it was a large swamp without color or shadow because the King couldn't decide which colors would be best. Along the way, the Swan's footsteps guided me. I even saw it fly away a few times. After exploring the swamp and a large house, shadows were added to the world. This made it a lot easier and faster to navigate obviously. There was a watchtower that led to a gigantic maze which I didn't have to really explore, thankfully. I reached a hot air balloon, rode it, then fell out into a lake or pool of some kind.
In this new area, my ink blobs were replaced with water blobs. As I got out of the water, I noticed a very large, sleeping (and snoring!) giant nearby. My task is to wake him. Using my new water blobs, I was able to solve small puzzles by throwing them at mechanisms to move stuff around. I scaled a large scaffolding. I then reached a garden area and when I shot water blobs at the dead bushes, green shrubbery started growing! I quickly figured out that I could make myself some paths by shooting the blobs where I want to go. It's very cool and I'm curious to see what I will discover next.
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10
Another PS+ freebie, Unfinished Swan is a unique little exploration game with simple puzzle elements. It has an incredible look to it that really grabbed my attention. For the first few sections of the game, everything is completely white. I mean, the game starts and there is NOTHING on the screen except white. When a button is pressed, the character shoots out balls of black ink. These ink balls then reveal the geometry of the level. It's a really cool concept.
There's a bit of a story too. It's about a woman who loved to paint, but never completed her paintings. When she died, her orphan son was allowed to keep only one painting. He chose her favorite, "The Unfinished Swan". The game seems to take place in the kid's mind as he explores the painting. It's very dreamy and crazy, but it works rather well. The excellent ambient music helps set the mood well with it's soft xylophone chords.
I played through two areas and saw the beginning of the third. First, it was a large swamp without color or shadow because the King couldn't decide which colors would be best. Along the way, the Swan's footsteps guided me. I even saw it fly away a few times. After exploring the swamp and a large house, shadows were added to the world. This made it a lot easier and faster to navigate obviously. There was a watchtower that led to a gigantic maze which I didn't have to really explore, thankfully. I reached a hot air balloon, rode it, then fell out into a lake or pool of some kind.
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| The Unfinished Swan is wonderful to play |
In this new area, my ink blobs were replaced with water blobs. As I got out of the water, I noticed a very large, sleeping (and snoring!) giant nearby. My task is to wake him. Using my new water blobs, I was able to solve small puzzles by throwing them at mechanisms to move stuff around. I scaled a large scaffolding. I then reached a garden area and when I shot water blobs at the dead bushes, green shrubbery started growing! I quickly figured out that I could make myself some paths by shooting the blobs where I want to go. It's very cool and I'm curious to see what I will discover next.
