A murder of Crows by Design Youkai
Flavor: a lightly offkilter vision of a day in the life of a crow, conveyed through anecdote and peculiar language
Playtime: 12 minutes
The game has simple, approachable gameplay. You have only a few choices at a time, and your actions often loop back on themselves. You see just a few vignettes before the day is over.
The game depicts crows as having a relatively advanced (for a crow) mental state, but a lot of the poignancy comes from the gap between the crow’s understanding and the player’s understanding. (I wouldn’t say I attained a full understanding of events, but the crows find a dog that’s being mistreated by its owners; a human friend, who might be a child or a bird rescuer or something? There was something going on there; and a crow who thinks she was harassed by some humans although it seems implied there’s more to that story. The crows often use simplified diction, grammar, etc., and a sort of sing-songy diction.
I thought it was pretty effective at simulating different-than-my mental processes, and I enjoyed the looping gameplay—something felt very crow-like to me in the idea of having the same idea several times in a row (and occasionally you get different results). The game had a more grounded / bittersweet vibe than you might expected, and I enjoyed that the endings I saw were open, which felt right. Crow life goes on, you know?
Short, made a point, didn’t overstay its welcome.
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