A Bird Story

A Bird Story
Developer(s)	Freebird Games
Engine	RPG Maker
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux[1]
Release date(s)	November 5, 2014
Genre(s)	Adventure, role playing game[2]
Mode(s)	Single-player

A Bird Story is an adventure role-playing video game, the second developed and published by Freebird Games. It was released on 5 November 2014 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux as a minisode connecting the previous game by Freebird Games, To the Moon, with the upcoming sequel, Finding Paradise. It received mixed reviews from critics, whose main complaints were its dullness and slow gameplay.

Gameplay

A Bird Story is a short video-game in which the player controls an imaginative young boy who is ignored by the majority of the other characters and throughout the whole game; all characters except the boy and a few others have ghost-like bodies.^[3] When the boy finds an injured bird, he becomes happier and begins to notice more people, and his introversion lowers.^[4] The map is as though the game is a recollection of memories, instead of being in real time. The player could be in a park which leads into a hallway.^[5] In a Kotaku review, the lack of dialogue was compared to the expression "show, don't tell".^[5]

Release

A Bird Story was primarily released as a connection between To the Moon and the proper sequel, Finding Paradise on November 5, 2014. It was the second "minisode" released between the publication of To the Moon and the development of Finding Paradise,^[6] which was announced in early 2016^[7] for release in late 2016 or early 2017. The player will control the same character in Finding Paradise as they did in A Bird Story, but the developer says they will not need to play the previous game [A Bird Story] to understand the new one [Finding Paradise]; although it may be beneficial to do so.^[8]

Reception

A Bird Story received mixed reviews, with an overall 66/100 Metacritic rating based on 18 critic reviews^[9] and a 68.67% rating on GameRankings, based on nine reviews.^[10] Many reviewers have compared this game to To the Moon, another game by Freebird Games.^[3][4][5] Andrew Barker, in a review for RPGFan said the game is an enjoyable experience but isn't for everyone; the game's pace moves slowly and even though it's an hour long, the memory of the game will linger.^[11] The lack of proper gameplay was criticised by many reviewers; in a Rock, Paper, Shotgun article, John Walker criticised the "incredibly slow" movement mechanics,^[12] in a Kotaku review by Cassidee Moser, the only listed con was the linearity of the gameplay^[3] and in a PC Gamer review by Tyler Wilde the game was described as dull and slow but sentimental nonetheless.^[13] Roger Hargreaves for Metro said that it was a massive disappointment after the success of To the Moon.^[4] The predictability of the storyline was also criticised by Hargreaves,^[4] along with other reviewers such as Christian Donlan from Eurogamer.^[14]

References

External links

• Official website