This was sweet, there's not a whole lot to it, but given that it's something of a prologue to the 'actual' game Finding Paradise it did well enough at hooking me in.
The music is nice as expected, and the level design was really interesting. There's not text or dialogue, and there doesn't need to be. Not much to say really, I hope Finding Paradise is satisfying lol
The music is nice as expected, and the level design was really interesting. There's not text or dialogue, and there doesn't need to be. Not much to say really, I hope Finding Paradise is satisfying lol
Very interesting game in that it doesn't use any word and relatively simple gameplay to tell the story. Essentially it's an animation made in the RPG maker engine, which makes it quite unique.
Lasting about an hour, it's a very touching story in my opinion.
Lasting about an hour, it's a very touching story in my opinion.
Cute and simple with some good use of visual storytelling and metaphor. There’s not a whole lot going on here, but if you play it you get to point at your computer screen and gawk every time it’s referenced in Finding Paradise.
Um jogo simples e sem dialogo nenhum,mas q consegue te emocionar do mesmo jeito.
Ótimo "tease" de um ótimo jogo.
This can scarcely be classified as a conventional gameplay experience considering it's such a passive piece of work, with the intent instead being to soak in the wordless story and admittedly gorgeous atmosphere.
Ultimately I found it quite hit and miss - movement is extremely clunky and awkward, and it actually feels its length despite being only an hour.
But the art is nice and the music is beautiful. It's a cute, easily understood story, but likely only worthwhile for To the Moon completionists. Glad I played it once, I guess.
Ultimately I found it quite hit and miss - movement is extremely clunky and awkward, and it actually feels its length despite being only an hour.
But the art is nice and the music is beautiful. It's a cute, easily understood story, but likely only worthwhile for To the Moon completionists. Glad I played it once, I guess.
Acho que descrevo bem esse jogo ao dizer que ele é uma introdução a Finding Paradise. Mas diferente desse e de To the Moon, aqui não se tem uma participação ativa. Apenas curta o que é mostrado na tela, como um filme. Mas um filme antigo.
Not since Virginia have I felt that I was wasting my time playing a video game from the very beginning as I did with A Bird Story. This title has been marketed as a major miniature release in the To the Moon franchise, acting as a transitionary point between the first and second entries. And yet, if I hadn’t been told that, there is no way that I would have known. A Bird Story isn’t quite a misfire, but nor is it experimental: it’s another substandard, overly-cinematic excuse for a video game that should be looked upon as an example of what NOT to do in indie game design.
You’re supposedly given the ability to move around like in TTM, but I’d say the game only unlocks that about 50% of the time. The other 50% you’re forced to watch mini-cutscenes of an abysmal narrative that I’ll tear into in a little bit.
99 percent of this movement is just basic UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT, though that 1% comes up in the form of gimmicks that are too short-lived to be impactful. TTM didn’t have much in the way of gameplay either, but at least the story was intriguing, and exploration was encouraged. That latter part isn’t available here because you’re essentially on rails: trying to go off the straightforward path will land you against a brick wall, forcing you to backtrack and go back the way the game wants you go.
Aesthetically, A Bird Story is a mixed bag. It reuses a lot of the assets from TTM and the RPG Maker engine, but TTM was a beautiful game, and so that was far from being a bad tactic. Unfortunately, the limited environs here (a schoolground, apartment complex, and forested area) are laced with copy/pasted models (same-sized shadow figures, same-exact trees, same-exact lamps) ad nauseam. The biggest problem, though, is this weird filter that is placed over most of the game: it’s like halfway between sepia and bleach bypass. I’m guessing it was Freebird’s attempt at conceiving a unique “old-timey” feel to their storyline, but I didn’t think it fit personally due to the timeline being relatively modern.
Another graphical issue is the poor depiction of verticality. This is an inherent issue with 2D sprite games, and TTM suffered from it occasionally as well. But here, I felt that the problem was a lot more prevalent in the three places, with barriers not being distinguishable enough from regular pathways. That being said, one thing A Bird Story does remarkably effectively is combine the three places in fused sets that occur as a result of memories/dates getting combined in-story; you’ll see the schoolgrounds leading into forests, apartment doors opening into rainy exteriors, and so forth. Freebird also continues to demonstrate their ability to create unique facial expressions out of small sprite countenances, (though the smiling closed/curved eyelines was overused).
Sadly, I do have to end on a bitter note in this department, and that is regarding the constant use of white and black flashes. I get that this was done to depict time-skips and fast-forwards, but I couldn’t help but feel that, half the time, it was also done because the devs didn’t want to commit a huge budget to the project and so wanted to avoid animating sequences. But I fully concede that that is pure conjecture on my part. Either way, they were overused. Shortcuts were also taken like the lack of shadowmapping and no splashes (characters, in general, look like they’re floating on the land).
I was not a fan of the score. Gao did it himself again, yet the first half of the game incorporates these weird warble experimentations that distract rather than contribute to the scenes playing before you (the use of muted instruments, for example, or French Horns that hit notes so high they near-burst speakers). The second half is more restrained and standard, and yet that’s a bad thing because it both doesn’t stand out AND doesn’t contribute to the images at large. Flying around in your paper airplane, for example, should’ve elicited the same awe as John William’s track in ET during the bike scene.
The SFX is also barren. The exact same chirp is rehashed for your avian companion, and other things like footsteps and ambient noises are nonexistent. No dialogue means no voice acting (not that TTM had any, a big fault on its part).
Finally, we arrive at the story, and it’s such a misfire. You remember that episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody where Cody adopts a baby eagle? Imagine that turned completely serious and stretched out for an entire hour+ and you have A Bird Story. It’s actually worse than that: take that premise and combine it with a cliché tale of a loser kid with estranged parents becoming extroverted via a newfound friendship and you have A Bird Story.
Forgive me, but at this point I’m just tired of this archetypal narrative. We’ve seen it done with humans and animals alike a bazillion times, and Freebird doesn’t do anything different here. Thankfully, it doesn’t go into tearjerker territory, however there are blatant attempts at being heart-tugging and I just found it annoying. It’s quite possible to tell a moving story about a relationship using just imagery and music (Up and BvS’s openings are prime standards of this), but Freebird botched things here by over-relying on hackneyed tropes and story beats. The magical realism aspects aren’t bad, but it doesn’t amount to anything substantial or memorable courtesy of the aforestated weak OST and gameplay. Alongside, there are these odd momentary throwbacks to classic games/shows (Zelda, Spongebob, Mario, Scooby-Doo), and the comedic tones associated with them feel out-of-place with the drama elsewhere.
So yeah, it goes without saying that I wasn’t a fan of A Bird Story. Every single facet of it bore a noticeable problem, with its core narrative, in particular, being flawed. I have to play Finding Paradise to see just how integral it is to understanding that game, but I have a good feeling that it won’t be. It took me a little over an hour to beat the game, making the $4.00 asking price too much. Regardless, even if it was one dollar, the fact that I felt a one-hour game dragged says enough.
You’re supposedly given the ability to move around like in TTM, but I’d say the game only unlocks that about 50% of the time. The other 50% you’re forced to watch mini-cutscenes of an abysmal narrative that I’ll tear into in a little bit.
99 percent of this movement is just basic UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT, though that 1% comes up in the form of gimmicks that are too short-lived to be impactful. TTM didn’t have much in the way of gameplay either, but at least the story was intriguing, and exploration was encouraged. That latter part isn’t available here because you’re essentially on rails: trying to go off the straightforward path will land you against a brick wall, forcing you to backtrack and go back the way the game wants you go.
Aesthetically, A Bird Story is a mixed bag. It reuses a lot of the assets from TTM and the RPG Maker engine, but TTM was a beautiful game, and so that was far from being a bad tactic. Unfortunately, the limited environs here (a schoolground, apartment complex, and forested area) are laced with copy/pasted models (same-sized shadow figures, same-exact trees, same-exact lamps) ad nauseam. The biggest problem, though, is this weird filter that is placed over most of the game: it’s like halfway between sepia and bleach bypass. I’m guessing it was Freebird’s attempt at conceiving a unique “old-timey” feel to their storyline, but I didn’t think it fit personally due to the timeline being relatively modern.
Another graphical issue is the poor depiction of verticality. This is an inherent issue with 2D sprite games, and TTM suffered from it occasionally as well. But here, I felt that the problem was a lot more prevalent in the three places, with barriers not being distinguishable enough from regular pathways. That being said, one thing A Bird Story does remarkably effectively is combine the three places in fused sets that occur as a result of memories/dates getting combined in-story; you’ll see the schoolgrounds leading into forests, apartment doors opening into rainy exteriors, and so forth. Freebird also continues to demonstrate their ability to create unique facial expressions out of small sprite countenances, (though the smiling closed/curved eyelines was overused).
Sadly, I do have to end on a bitter note in this department, and that is regarding the constant use of white and black flashes. I get that this was done to depict time-skips and fast-forwards, but I couldn’t help but feel that, half the time, it was also done because the devs didn’t want to commit a huge budget to the project and so wanted to avoid animating sequences. But I fully concede that that is pure conjecture on my part. Either way, they were overused. Shortcuts were also taken like the lack of shadowmapping and no splashes (characters, in general, look like they’re floating on the land).
I was not a fan of the score. Gao did it himself again, yet the first half of the game incorporates these weird warble experimentations that distract rather than contribute to the scenes playing before you (the use of muted instruments, for example, or French Horns that hit notes so high they near-burst speakers). The second half is more restrained and standard, and yet that’s a bad thing because it both doesn’t stand out AND doesn’t contribute to the images at large. Flying around in your paper airplane, for example, should’ve elicited the same awe as John William’s track in ET during the bike scene.
The SFX is also barren. The exact same chirp is rehashed for your avian companion, and other things like footsteps and ambient noises are nonexistent. No dialogue means no voice acting (not that TTM had any, a big fault on its part).
Finally, we arrive at the story, and it’s such a misfire. You remember that episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody where Cody adopts a baby eagle? Imagine that turned completely serious and stretched out for an entire hour+ and you have A Bird Story. It’s actually worse than that: take that premise and combine it with a cliché tale of a loser kid with estranged parents becoming extroverted via a newfound friendship and you have A Bird Story.
Forgive me, but at this point I’m just tired of this archetypal narrative. We’ve seen it done with humans and animals alike a bazillion times, and Freebird doesn’t do anything different here. Thankfully, it doesn’t go into tearjerker territory, however there are blatant attempts at being heart-tugging and I just found it annoying. It’s quite possible to tell a moving story about a relationship using just imagery and music (Up and BvS’s openings are prime standards of this), but Freebird botched things here by over-relying on hackneyed tropes and story beats. The magical realism aspects aren’t bad, but it doesn’t amount to anything substantial or memorable courtesy of the aforestated weak OST and gameplay. Alongside, there are these odd momentary throwbacks to classic games/shows (Zelda, Spongebob, Mario, Scooby-Doo), and the comedic tones associated with them feel out-of-place with the drama elsewhere.
So yeah, it goes without saying that I wasn’t a fan of A Bird Story. Every single facet of it bore a noticeable problem, with its core narrative, in particular, being flawed. I have to play Finding Paradise to see just how integral it is to understanding that game, but I have a good feeling that it won’t be. It took me a little over an hour to beat the game, making the $4.00 asking price too much. Regardless, even if it was one dollar, the fact that I felt a one-hour game dragged says enough.
It might be simple, but it's simply perfect.
It's pretty alright. It's very short but manages to tell a solid enough story. It's not anything super noteworthy though.
You play it for the story, that's it
Nice prologue to Finding Paradise and already very emotional here too, really whets the appetite for the main game.
Overrated.
Meu Deus, que sonífero. Mesmo durando só uma horinha, tive que dar uma pausa na metade para tomar uma água e pegar um ar porque eu estava caindo de sono. Tem alguma coisa muito errada que não está certa num jogo de uma hora não consegue prender sua atenção pela mísera hora que dura.
Jogo muito bom, mas bem curto
Tive uma experiência bem emocionante com esse jogo, seja pelo tema, que pra mim é bastante identificável, a ambientação contemplativa ou a belíssima trilha sonora, que tem um dos papeis mais importantes da carga emocional da obra. Apesar de ser bem curtinho, é bastante gratificante.
Cute little short game that pretty neatly doesn’t actually use words.
Won’t change your life, but for only like an hour, eh, it was neat
Won’t change your life, but for only like an hour, eh, it was neat
A Bird Story was a short, but emotional and very charming little story that I enjoyed very much, and that touched my heart.
You play as a young boy who loves animals and loves the outdoors. When he's at home or at school, his life is often mediocre and boring, but you can see him enjoying himself outside when he can go to the forest. One day, he comes across a small bird in the forest. The bird's wing is broken, so he takes the bird and rescues it, bringing it back to his apartment. Although the bird needs healing, the boy is afraid of anyone taking the bird away from him, and he tries to nurse it back to health himself.
The story is short but beautiful and heartwarming, and I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a nice story, and bird-lovers like myself. Its soundtrack is quite pretty as well, and I don't have any complaints about this game. It's such a nice little story, and just like To The Moon, I love it. ^.^
You play as a young boy who loves animals and loves the outdoors. When he's at home or at school, his life is often mediocre and boring, but you can see him enjoying himself outside when he can go to the forest. One day, he comes across a small bird in the forest. The bird's wing is broken, so he takes the bird and rescues it, bringing it back to his apartment. Although the bird needs healing, the boy is afraid of anyone taking the bird away from him, and he tries to nurse it back to health himself.
The story is short but beautiful and heartwarming, and I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a nice story, and bird-lovers like myself. Its soundtrack is quite pretty as well, and I don't have any complaints about this game. It's such a nice little story, and just like To The Moon, I love it. ^.^
This freaking bird almost made me cry
A Bird Story es una historia narrativa que los buenos de Freebird Games presentaron entre To the Moon y Finding Paradise. En ella vivimos un pequeño y bonito fragmento en la vida de Colin, uno de los personajes importantes de Finding Paradise.
Con una jugabilidad casi inexistente, como un walking simulator, vamos desarrollando la historia que es entretenida y bonita.
En cuanto al apartado artístico, gráficamente sigue la línea de los juegos de este estudio, con un pixel art sencillo pero muy bonito y una BSO sublime.
Con una hora de duración, sirve para pasar un buen rato.
Con una jugabilidad casi inexistente, como un walking simulator, vamos desarrollando la historia que es entretenida y bonita.
En cuanto al apartado artístico, gráficamente sigue la línea de los juegos de este estudio, con un pixel art sencillo pero muy bonito y una BSO sublime.
Con una hora de duración, sirve para pasar un buen rato.
cute game cute birb amazing soundtrack
Veredito: curto, barato, direto e emocionante.
Eu sou um monstro sem coração. Eu não chorei com esse jogo. (mas quase)
Valeu cada centavo.
Eu sou um monstro sem coração. Eu não chorei com esse jogo. (mas quase)
Valeu cada centavo.
A cute prologue to Finding Paradise about a boy growing attached to a bird. It’s pleasant, if not very memorable on its own.
This game is from the same creator of "To the Moon". I would advise anyone that has played and enjoyed To the Moon to lower expectations since A Bird Story is not on the same level.
This game is much shorter and even manages (somehow) to have less gameplay than To the Moon. With that being said, it portrays a very charming story that is conveyed only through the gameplay and animations in a very effective way.
This game is much shorter and even manages (somehow) to have less gameplay than To the Moon. With that being said, it portrays a very charming story that is conveyed only through the gameplay and animations in a very effective way.
Simples e bonitinho.
A cute mini episode. Its fun having the teaser for the next game in the series be its own little game rather than just a trailer or an announcement. I'm indecisive though on whether or not I'd consider this required story to play before Finding Paradise.
>100%
Played before I created a Backlogged account.
Played before I created a Backlogged account.
Importante para Finding Paradise,e é curtin
Amo o mundo que a Freebird Games criou, sempre desce a lágrima no final de cada jogo dessa sequência
If this didn't tie into Finding Paradise I probably would have forgotten about it 3 hours after playing. Just not for me, frankly.