The Unfinished Swan

The Unfinished Swan (engl. " The Unfinished Swan" ) is a video game that was developed by the California Independent studio Giant Sparrow for the PlayStation 3 console and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as a paid download on the PlayStation Network in October 2012.

The player controls the game character, a boy named Monroe, from the first-person by an initially completely white world, which can be colored by firing with black paint balls. The Unfinished Swan was already in the development phase, a big one for an indie game attention by the press and has been reviewed overwhelmingly positive. In particular, the innovative game concept and the artistic graphic style were praised.

Action

The mother of ten -year-old Monroe is a painter who has but none of her pictures ever completed, and when she dies, the boy feels just as unfinished. Since it may take only one of the images to the orphanage, he opts for the favorite picture of his mother, the unfinished swan. Is when one night the swan from the painting disappeared, the boy follows his footsteps in a surreal world that is initially completely white.

With the silver brush his mother Monroe can squirt black color and are oriented so. Offering a garden, he arrives at a castle in a giant maze and finally to a large seaside town, where he always follows the swan. Gradually, he learns the history of this world: it was once created in perfect white of a king and ruled, which is described as high-handed and self-centered. Then the king, saw only troublesome subjects in the people who lived in his kingdom, the soiled his perfect world and destroyed, he eventually withdrew alone on an island back and painted a house and a wife who is his female version itself turned out and in which he immediately fell in love. The Queen painted pictures that made her all unfinished, but shortly before the birth of her child, she suddenly disappeared and only had one of her paintings and her silver brush along. The king, for it was no explanation listened to paint on, and nine years later he wanted as a last legacy of a huge monument created of himself. Also this was left unfinished and the king was trapped in his dream.

As Monroe the island and eventually reaches the unfinished monument, awakened the King and can participate at the boy in the story of his life. He is a lonely and exhausted old man who was never able to accomplish anything in his life or achieve, but had yet fun at his creations. Finally, he gives up his brush Monroe. Back in his world, the boy completed so that the image of the swan.

Gameplay

The perspective and the controls of the game are similar to those of a first-person shooter. The character can with an analog stick of the gamepad moves in all directions and rotated with the other. With a key paintballs or, in some game sections, water droplets can be fired. Here, a small circular mark in the middle of the screen serves as an aiming aid. Since it moves the fluid physically correct on a parabolic trajectory, the range is not too large. The character can also jump and, for example, climb up ladders or vines. As an alternative to control with the gamepad can also PlayStation Move be used as an input device.

The Unfishined Swan is divided into three chapters, which differ significantly from each other in gameplay. In a brief final chapter fourth all game elements are taken up again. In the first chapter the game objective is a completely white game world as dye them with black paint that one orientation is possible. In the second chapter, the character can spray water and the essential element of the game here is to bring the water vines to grow and to this entlangzuklettern. In the third chapter, which takes place mainly in a dark forest, it is with the color of light fruits to activate. The character is in the dark for too long, she is attacked by spiders. In addition, any platform can be created in some sections of this chapter with the color, thereby enabling a progress.

In the game world balloons also are hidden, which can be collected by bombarding. They are used as currency to buy in-game menu extras and improvements, such as a device that displays all nearby balloons, or continuous fire for the color. Sometimes there are golden letters on walls that open after bombarding a page in the style of a picture book that tells the story continues or deepens.

Reception

Reviews

From the review The Unfinished Swan was reacted favorably: According to Metacritic it scored 66 reviews evaluated the overall result of 79 out of 100. In the website GameRankings scoring average is 80.70 %.

The website IGN awarded the game the score 9.0/10.0. The reviewer Greg Miller called The Unfinished Swan as "nothing short of spectacular ." The game was indeed with about two hours of gameplay quite short and offer no real challenges, however, lies its true beauty is that it tells a story that always introducing new and varied game elements with each chapter. In particular, the initial portion with the completely white world is breathtaking and fascinating ( "breathtaking and intriguing ").

Benjamin Schmädig of 4Players expressed considerable skepticism about the game. Although he also described the gameplay of the first chapter as "unique " and " Discover the most exciting ," he " has long experienced " have, found, however, that overall the different game elements would not fit together. In particular, he criticized the lack of clever puzzles and challenges. The story is indeed told lovingly, but will "their claim of a significant metaphor is not just." The magazine awards the rating to 78%.

At the same time " bewitched and disappointed " also faced Carsten Görig of Mirror Online. Although the game look out fantastic, his main problem there, however, is not to place undue reliance on its sensational aesthetics. Since real challenges were missing, had become " short, but ultimately boring game " from a good idea into a.

Prices

The Unfinished Swan won two awards at the British Academy Video Games Awards 2013 in the category Game innovation and Debut Game; in another category, original music, it was nominated. The game was also a prize of the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2012 Award as Best Downloadable Game.