![]() ![]() As the plot develops, you’ll discover the backstory of each bully and come to understand the world from their perspective. Scattered about the levels are newspaper clippings and other environmental storytelling tidbits which breath additional life into the city, and as the player, you’ll get really invested in Ash’s quest to bring the abandoned town back to life.Ĭoncrete Genie also explores themes of bullying in its narrative: as Ash wanders through the town he’ll be tormented by five hoodlums with a destructive streak. ![]() The darkness which drove away the villagers manifests in physical form, stretching black and purple tentacles across passageways and crumbling houses. ![]() PixelOpus has created a vivid, believable space a fishing village which was once alive with activity but slowly decayed due to an oil spill. The player is given free reign to explore Denska at their own pace, which is the game’s true delight. Neither the painting or platforming is difficult in the traditional sense you won’t be losing health, getting game overs or getting stumped over fiendishly complex puzzles. This is to say that Concrete Genie is not really a game about mechanical challenge. It’s the Sony blockbuster way of looking-perilous-without-actually-being-perilous if you actually do fall off you’ll simply respawn just before you jumped. You wouldn’t guess it by looking at him, but Ash is a fairly spry kid, and you’ll spend most of the game running around Denska’s rooftops and swinging around pipes and cracked concrete. The other half of the game’s mechanics is, oddly enough, Uncharted-esque platforming sequences. If you’re approaching Concrete Genie from a more traditional, game-y mindset however, you might be annoyed that your helper stubbornly won’t clear your path forward until you draw them some mushrooms surrounded by an aurora or something. If you’re a player who can see them as living beings or even friends then the genies are fun and delightful. Genies are playful creatures which will first ask you for certain drawings, or to be entertained, before they’ll help open the way. Throughout Denska you’ll find spaces to draw and summon Genies, which have elemental powers that can help you problem solve and open up additional pathways. The first half is painting paired with exploration: in each zone, you’ll be tasked with igniting a series of hanging lights with your paintbrush, which will fight against the corrupting dark force and allow passage into later parts of the levels. Although the player can’t make their own designs, the decals are more than enough to personalise the space to your liking, and the added benefit is that there’s no real way to make a wall look awful.Ĭoncrete Genie is primarily an adventure game, and there’s two halves which come together to initially form a compelling gameplay loop. The game offers 60 unique decals, mostly plants and natural objects, which can be unlocked through finding sketchbook pages while adventuring. What I love about this game is the painting mechanic – once Ash’s paintbrush is given its magical power by a lighthouse ghost named Luna, nearly every wall in Denska will become a canvas for the player to plaster a variety of designs over. For the most part, its quaint mechanics and exploration will be sure to put a smile on any player’s face. This is a wholesome little game about a boy named Ash whose paintbrush can bring colourful creatures to life, and makes a promise to an old lighthouse ghost to restore the abandoned fishing village of Denska back to its former glory. This is the same team that is back with its sophomore title: Concrete Genie. One of the games made in this mindset was Entwined, built and released in 2014 by in-house studio, PixelOpus. Related viewing: On Sony’s changing priorities as a publisher ![]()
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