A Long Look at A Bird Story-Introduction and Index

I was inspired abruptly to cover A Bird Story, a game I was originally going to leave alone and only review briefly, if at all. Truth be told, I feel it’s a very trite story, with little impact on the overarching narrative of the Sigmund Corporation franchise. It exists likely because Kan Gao, its author, emerged fresh from his success with To the Moon as a bold author, willing to try something very experimental.

Indeed, the game can be very aptly described as a narrative experiment. It has no dialogue, despite using dialogue boxes. It frequently connects scenes through absurd visual shorthand. And, while it vividly covers the childhood of the central protagonist of the next mainline game, fairly little of the information gleaned here will be used there.

So, why cover this? Despite my rather low opinion, it does highlight the author’s grasp of the visual medium quite well - not just the far prettier background art, but also the composition of many scenes, which naturally come to the fore in a “silent story” like this. At one point, the protagonists venture over a vast expanse of many lands on a paper plane, looking for a bird’s nest. Despite the seeming silliness of that premise, it is presented with utmost sincerity, and ends up being one of the most stunning scenes within.

A shot from the protagonists’ trip over many lands.

Of course, this series isn’t exactly meant to be congratulatory - if anything, this tale is a good showcase of how even perfect form can’t make up for lackluster content. While it does aim to be a simple story about a mundane, if imaginative kid, there was still space to tell it in a more interesting fashion. Now, certainly, a fair amount of this can be rightfully regarded as subjective taste, but I firmly believe that a good bit of it is built off observable mechanics and elements, which I hope to cover effectively through the course of the series.

Here is the series’ index. This will be updated as I add new entries. I plan to update this on a weekly scale, but time deals as time does.

INDEX:

Chapter One: One Tiny Rapscallion

Chapter Two: Homely and Dull

Edit: Not continuing this, check here for why.