The Frog in a Shallow Well
A Story About My Uncle is a pithy first person platforming video game by Gone North Games. As you start the game, your daughter asks you to tell her a story. You begin playing events out as you narrate them to your daughter. On a technical level the story telling is handled well. Incorporating itself into numerous functions of the game. For instance, whenever you quit the game the father has a bit of dialog to tuck his daughter in for the night and resume tomorrow. Challenges and secrets to be found are also dispersed through this narrative. Eventually you meet Mady, a crush of the narrator when he was younger and you eventually go adventuring together to find your uncle.
To solve the puzzles the character is given a primary and two secondary means of transportation. Primary means of transportation being a glove which allows the player to traverse caverns and floating platforms with the ease of Spider-man in Manhattan. Secondary means of transportation being a charged jump and rocket boots typically used in conjunction with the grapple glove to extend the players reach in exceedingly unique ways. While Portal is clearly an influence both to how to narrative unfolds and function manipulating momentum plays in the mechanics, the style is more candid, less ambidextrous both in how it plays and tells it's story. This not being a quality judgement, it's more of a welcomed exploration of how to use these similar mechanics and tell the story differently.
The most outstanding aspect of the game is how it looks, especially when you're flying through the caverns at top speed. With many of the early environments strongly evoking the majesty and mystery of Xen from the original Half Life. Warm with a painterly look, the environments conjure up pleasant remembrances of Brothers from last year. The look of the game is the most striking thing about it and being in a fantastical setting it saves itself the uncanny valley problem a game like Mirror's Edge suffered for me while attempting to perform a look similarly while it was in motion. A Story About My Uncle won't waste your time and all the aspects I mentioned above it does exceptionally well.
