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Old Man's Journey (iPd)

Status: Finished playing
I started playing this game on Sunday 12 August, 2018  //  I stopped playing this game on: Wednesday 15 August, 2018
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.

August 15, 2018 07:00:15 PM
I played this over the course of a few plane trips which was nice.

I loved the music, I loved the art, and...to an extent I enjoyed the gameplay as well. Mostly the little details that made it shine.

It's a short game (excellent!) about getting an old man from his home to his destination. As you travel from location to location you learn a bit more about his life and the reason for his trip and such. It's a nice, short story - nothing super special, but told in a nice sweet way.

I wasn't really expecting any "real" game play, just "interactive stuff" mostly - but it's there and it was a nice surprise when I first learned what it was. Basically, you drag the background "ground" up/down such that they all connect and the old man can walk across the screen. So, you need to line them up and then, the man walks across BUT (trick perspective!) also walks "into" the picture. This is really hard to explain with text - a simple animated gif would do wonders here.

Over the course of the game this basic formula gets mixed up a bit - there's a bit of light puzzling where you shift a background floor such that a rock will roll around, and stuff like that.

None of it really outstays its welcome, but, as I mentioned, it was the little details I enjoyed a lot (as far as the gameplay/puzzling is concerned). For example, sometimes there are poles with telephone wires, and when you drag/move a background the wires will bounce around on the poles...

It's definitely "more game" than, say, Florence - with less "story", but still enjoyable. I really like it as an example to show other people of "polish" and fine and careful attention to detail.


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria