Gris is a puzzle-platformer game, often lauded as a work of visual art. It features a wordless story, told largely through artistic flourishes and gesticulation. The inky watercolor backgrounds resemble a daydream.
Our protagonist gains abilities that facilitate her adventure through this dreamy world. Each stage contributes a new color until the world is brimming with yellows, reds, blues, and greens. The art direction is breathtaking with abstract sculptures, teetering buildings, and cliffs punctuating a vast psychological landscape.
While I floundered for the first few minutes, I quickly developed an intuition for Gris's puzzles, inferring what to do based on visual cues. Gris reminds me that video games are a language. Developers teach us this language through small scale design choices, such as a cracked boulder or a glowing light. In an age where games elaborate through excessive tutorials and dialogue, Gris embraces powerful silence.
While I found myself stirred by Gris, I will admit that it is esoteric. There are obvious undertones of loss, grief, and rejuvenation here, though they only ever manifest through metaphoric cutscenes. The gameplay sometimes prolongs segments past the point of novelty, stalling emotional revelations or (at worst) intruding on my ability to fully behold the art. For every moment like this, however, there are three others that ask the player to move through the game as if through a painting.
While Gris is not the most enjoyable game I have played, it is the only painting I have ever played -- and that is a testament to its significance!
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