AGI Research 5

17. Gris is a 2018 game by Daniel Cuadrado González and Óscar Crego, published by Nomada Studio. It is about a woman, living in a world of crumbling statues and ancient ruins, bringing colour back into a black and white world in 5 stages and gathering stars to form constellations which she can walk across and can give her special powers. The game is composed of exploratory jumping puzzles, atmospheric explorations of place and inbuilt cutscene animations, sometimes indistinguishable from one another. 

Gris’s priorities seem oriented around animation, movement design, location design and atmosphere. While I am still in the process of playing it, and am only up to the second of five levels, I would say that the game is in part a work by and for appreciators of animation, which is likely part of the reason it was recommended to me. I appreciate the ways in which detailed animation was woven into minor aspects of the work: the cutscenes, character clothing movements, the movement and trail design of the stars the protagonist collects, the small stone creatures which bustle around, hiding from the protagonist which serve no story purpose but are there to occupy the world’s space and build on it. 

The characters light footed movement design and cone legs remind me closely of Journey and bring to mind just how much is added to the perceived lightness and likeability of a character by giving them tiny or non-existent feet and hands. In both cases the silhouette of the protagonist is dominated by a triangular center, reducing the shoulders and making the head appear larger, giving the appearance of childish innocence, in my opinion. 

Realising how many small details animation can be incorporated into a game has prompted me to make an extensive list of aspects of my game that could be animated, even those which aren’t interactive, to lend a sense of atmosphere and complex world building.