Gris, a great but not revolutionary exercise in minimalistic game design
Gris is a game I never heard of until I saw it listed as a nominee at the 2019 Game Awards. What initially intrigued me about the game was the out-of-the-realm-of-typical-video-games art style, favoring a watercolor painting. I knew it would be one of those artsy indie games that don’t take long to complete, which seemed to be just what I was in the mood for. It was. Last night I just finished playing through the game on my Nintendo Switch in docked mode. If I were to ballpark how long it took me to complete, I would say it took a casual 5 hours over two play sessions.
So in this discussion, I don’t want to regurgitate what happens during the story or talk about what the overarching narrative was trying to covey, because I believe that aspect could be circle-jerked over for hours during a highbrow conversation about the designer’s intent. I also don’t want to talk about why I think the game could make someone rather emotional upon completion or why I’ve been deprived of this feeling due to an accumulation of other experiences throughout my life which causes me to remain emotionally bleak when it comes to abstract storytelling concerning the human condition. Instead, I’d rather focus on how I consider Gris to be an excellent exercise of minimalistic game design.
Gris excels in is using the elements of your typical side-scrolling platformer, and taking a far more artistic purpose-driven approach. During my first 10 minutes of play couldn’t help but notice the constant shifting of the camera and while still flowing with your character as you explore the surreal game world. The camera is constantly moving in and out to create moments of intimacy and isolation, or to give you nonverbal cues about where you should go next. Each moment of camera movement seemed to be done with a motive each and every time. And I’m not saying other games don’t do this, just that Gris does this to the point where it becomes one of the game’s main storytelling tools.
Staying in line with simplicity, Gris accomplishes a lot with just two buttons. While I understand that most games in the puzzle platformers genre usually have limited controls, Gris does more than most. At the start of the game, the only thing you can do is move and jump, which eventually evolves into a double jump. While being necessary and cliche, I would say being able to jump is far less exciting than the other ability which allows you to turn into a block. The block mode becomes beneficial when you need to pound the ground, become a heavy immovable object, or create a platform depending on which part of the game you are on. These two abilities become even more versatile when interacting with the game’s environment. What the game fails to do is provide situations where all of the abilities come together in a symphony of movement and skill or give you multiple options for completing sections of the game; however, while I feel like this was a missed opportunity, the game never lead itself to a situation where I was felt wanting more.
I wouldn’t be able to properly assess this game’s design without mentioning the sound. The game's music naturally flowed as you progressed through the story, creating a proper reflection of what was happening on the screen, swelling at just the right moments. There was never was a dynamic change that felt out of place, and the positioning of the score lends itself to enhance or rather create suspense during moments of a game where harm and death were nonexistent. Never have I been so excited to receive help from a sea turtle I hardly knew.
While I appreciate Gris for what it is. I don’t know if I would consider the game “important” in the grand scale of the puzzle-platformer genre, but I do look forward to the influence it may generate. I think it’s safe to call Gris the best puzzle platformer of the year due to the fact that games from this genre seemed to be nonexistent in 2019. I recommend Gris to anyone who prefers a good ole artsy-fartsy atmospheric puzzle-platformer, but I’d also recommend it to people who are first-time gamers or don’t game very often because the puzzle platforming of Gris can come off as an afterthought that only serves as a vessel to tell its visual narrative.
