Similar to the regular paintings, Genies are born from a semblance of pre-designed parts: a body, ears, tails, horns, all painted into the world with simple strokes. At certain points in the world, Ash has the opportunity to paint a new Genie. Not every problem can be solved with paint and platforming alone though, and that’s where the Genies come in. Useful for evading bullies, but also for finding hidden design pages and other secrets. Ash is also quite nimble and can climb, Asssassin’s Creed-style, up anything with enough footholds. They’ll occasionally hang about areas you’ll need to explore and harass you if they see you, but they’re easily drawn away by yelling and causing a distraction, and as you complete each area they move along in turn. The only real ‘threat’ in the game, at least to begin with, is the gang of bullies that insist on making Ash’s life hard. There is typically no prerequisite for what you paint in those spots though, and you can paint almost any wall or flat, vertical surface that you want just for the hell of it, making for some refreshingly chill and meditative gameplay that doesn’t hurry you along any more than it needs to. The designs unlock gradually over the course of the game, as you find their pages in the world, and fit into five distinct themes that mirror the areas they’re found in and the tone of the story at the time.Ĭompleting each area of Denska requires painting specific walls or buildings, denoted by a series of hanging bulbs that light up as you paint over the correct areas until they’re all lit up. While it’s not possible to paint ‘freely’, the designs themselves are drawn into the world as opposed to just stamped on, so you have a degree of freedom in their size, shape and direction, be it grass or flowers, a tree, a campfire or even the sun and moon. Laying down some paint is as easy as pressing the right trigger, which kicks the Dualshock 4’s motion sensors in and brings up a menu of pre-fabricated designs to paint. Herein lies the game’s core mechanic: painting magical murals across the town, restoring its beauty while also bringing to life more of the Genies. The Genie, named Luna, gives Ash a magical brush that imbues him with the power to bring his drawings to life on any wall, setting him off on a journey to find the rest of the scattered pages and use his newfound paint powers to rid Denska of a creeping darkness that’s slowly engulfed the town. Following one of the pages, Ash ends up at Denska’s lighthouse where, magically, the page comes to life and births an actual Genie – one trapped within the two-dimensional confines of the lighthouse walls, as it was in the pages of the book. During a run-in with the bullies in (the technically off-limits) Denska, they take Ash’s sketchbook and scatter the pages to the wind until it’s completely empty. He spends his time escaping into a sketchbook, where he draws fantastical creatures he calls Genies, as well as the places they inhabit. Between losing his home town, the fishing port of Denska, to an oil accident and being constantly bullied by a gang of troubled kids, main character Ash doesn’t have the best relationship with the world. Overall though, it’s about forgiveness and reparation.
It’s also somewhat about the impact that environment has on commerce and the knock-on effect that has to communities. It’s partially a game about bullying, both the effects on victims and the hope for reconciliation.
PixelOpus, an indie studio under the umbrella of Sony Interactive Entertainment, seem to have already cracked it on their second ever title, making Concrete Genie an absolute gem of a game and one that Sony should be proud to have exclusively in the PlayStation family.Ĭoncrete Genie is a game with a few things to say, and they’re things that aren’t typically said in the medium.
It’s something that doesn’t come by accident, and it shows a studio’s true understanding of the medium. For me, some of the best and most memorable gaming experiences are made when a game’s themes intrinsically inform its gameplay, and vice versa.
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