What an era we are in for video games. Developing odd and unique experiences has been a highlight of the last decade for indie developers. Gravity Ghost is no different. This game has a lot of heart and soul, from the trippy gameplay to the tangible story, Gravity Ghost brings the player into a short game on a thought provoking ride.
Story
The game follows a young woman who lives with her family in a remote wooded area near a lighthouse. After tragedy struck, the girl goes looking for a fox in a dream like world speaking to spirit animals and rescuing lost souls while piecing together the events from the real world she doesn’t fully recall. The journey that the player takes piecing the story together through numerous flashbacks and conversations she has with spirits is a little odd at first, but each scene tells the player about the story and characters without being to overt or obvious, in other words, the actual story telling is very well done.
Gameplay
Everything is based around traveling from planetoid to planetoid via gravitational pulls and jumping. The planets can range in size from a tennis ball to a house. The planets also vary in movement, type, gravitational force and many other things. All these elements combined with various powers and ways to change and interact with the planets make a very well paced game.
All of the puzzles are also fair. Some of them are a little more difficult than others, but I never felt it was unfair or that I could only win by luck. There are extra challenge levels that are much more difficult and require a lot more thought and trial and error, and that’s great.
Gravity Ghost at first glance also seems like a puzzle game, working through different gravitational pulls along with a number of abilities to travel from play to place. However, the game ends up being much more of a trial and error platformer, your character floating around with some guidance trying to get a star or save an animal spirit.
Overall the moment to moment gameplay is entertaining and engaging even though it may be somewhat simple and straightforward.
Visuals
Hand painted (digitally painted) characters and objects took a moment or two to get used to, but the colors, flowing lines and simplicity allowed the player to enjoy who the people were and what was happening much more than if things were perfect or not. The game through and through, from beginning to end looks great even though at times the cutscenes look to be from an old Flash browser game. I’m still captivated by the personality and life the objects and characters had
Audio
Voice acting for this game is surprisingly good. The personality is truly driven by quick wit that sounded like true genuine conversations, it brought the people to life through the entire game. The other sound effects and music are good and do their job, but nothing amazing or incredible.
Replayability
This game has some extra puzzle levels and there is at least one major unlock at the end of the game. However, there is no other major motivation to play through again, expecting a different story, bunches of collectables or other such things. The only reason to play through the game again would be to show it to a friend or family member and go through all of it in a few hours.
What It Could Have Done Better
All of the audio and visuals for the game were very entertaining and made for a good game, but the gameplay itself could have been more tight feeling. Often my character just felt like a drifting mass instead of a master of gravity. There are also many abilities and ways to affect the gameplay like dead drops, extra gliding and changing planets to water or fire, but these extra abilities were never really explored and it just felt like mostly the same types of puzzles with some extra flair to keep the player engaged.
Verdict
I never thought that a story would really redeem a mediocre game. Yet, Gravity Ghost gives us a reason to care while allowing us to enjoy fun and unique gameplay. Playing through the short game just to see the journey of this young girl’s regret and desire to change is enough reason to play it through to the end in a few hours.
