A Bird Story

It hurts me to write this review.

I loved To the Moon, and strongly recommend it. It is an original, touching story, which will entirely engage you, with lovable characters, a heartbreaking soundtrack, and perfect timing in its direction and production. Everywhere you turn, there is wonder. Kan Gao created a masterpiece there.

Unfortunately, A Bird Story has none of this. The story is cliché, utterly predictable from the start. There are only three different settings, which are repeated without any change. The musical theme is the same everywhere, and it's not very interesting. There is no character development to speak of. Worst, the pacing is just very ... off. Repeated scenes of walking through corridors towards the same place you were before. For such a short story, you would want some variety. But there is none. It's not full of wonder. It's just annoying.

Art is an experiment. There is no doubt that Kan Gao is bursting with talent. But in this case, the experiment failed. I think the attempt was to create something subtle and low-key. But it's just so subtle that the "player" risks being totally un-engaged.

I guess I should say something good? The ending is quite sweet. But, it's also very predictable.

I'm glad I bought the game (plus the soundtrack) to support video game art, but I find this very hard to recommend, even to fans of this genre of art-story games.

I would like to thank the developer for supporting Linux!