We’ve played a lot of games over the years. Between us, we’ve played them in their thousands. With all of that experience under our belts, a game needs to do something pretty spectacular to really impress us.
Thankfully, A Story About My Uncle impressed us. A lot.
Gone North’s debut is being billed as a first-person platforming adventure game set in a wonderfully-realized fantasy world and really, that’s a spot-on description of the game. At its core, A Story About My Uncle isn’t much more than a platformer with a kind of gimmicky grapple mechanic that propels you at high speed throughout its environments. This grapple takes the form of an energy beam that shoots blue lightning out from your character’s power suit, sort of like a glorified electrical bungie cord. It’s powered by crystals, all of which are collected fairly early on. These increase the number of times the grappling beam can be deployed before landing, allowing you to eventually cross some pretty vast gaps. We’re not really sure why landing instantly recharges all of your suit’s functions, it just does; the crystals serve simply to provide a catalyst for more complex puzzles later on in the game.
While it sounds almost too simplistic, Gone North has managed to craft some wonderful conundrums, and the environments you’ll swing through are never less than a feast for your eyeballs.
Sadly, the controls are a little sluggish, making precise maneuvers a bit more difficult than it should be - not great when the result is plummeting down a huge chasm to your doom. The idea of using this beam to swing at high speeds in deeps caves, hovering cities in the sky, and within the oppressive walls of an ice cavern sounds like a lot of fun - and often it is - but it can also become a test of patience and rage management - two qualities which seemingly must be present whenever any game expects you to expertly navigate difficult terrain at high velocity.
The end result is that A Story About My Uncle is often a little more difficult than it should be. You will fall. A lot. It will get frustrating as all hell, and you might even break a controller or two… or a window… or your hand, as you attempt to punch through a brick wall. Whatever your sadomasochistic poison is, be prepared to drink deep from the trough of gamer rage - and not in the good, Dark Souls kind of way.
But if all of that sounds like it damages the game too much, it doesn’t. When the controls work, it’s a lot of fun. Gliding effortlessly through a series of well-placed grapple points before landing safely onto a picturesque landing zone with an Earth-shaking thud, A Story About My Uncle shines. Some of the sparkle may be lost amidst the frustrations; but overall, A Story About My Uncle is a thoroughly rewarding experience.
When a game frustrates as much as certain sections of this game does, we usually just stop playing. But we didn’t, and nor did we ever want to stop playing. The wonderful focus on story, and the near-perfect way in which it’s told, creates deep connection and immersion in the world which kept us pushing forward past the hand-breaking, wall-punching rage. And in the end, it was all worth it.
The story isn’t particularly complex, nor is it shocking. The best word for it would be charming. Full of warmth and childlike wonder, A Story About My Uncle weaves its tale in the form of a man telling his daughter a bedtime story about an amazing adventure he had as a child. It seems his uncle had been missing for a few months, and the man was endeavoring to find him by searching his home for clues. We learn that his uncle was a bit of an adventurer, as well as an inventor, and had been all over the globe doing daring things and being generally just being pretty awesome.
While searching the house, the young nephew stumbles upon a power suit - just like the one his uncle would wear during his exploits. Only, this one was smaller. Child-sized. So the young man naturally puts it on and ventures into his uncle’s most secret chamber - the observatory. There, he found a strange pad on the floor and, in the course of being recklessly curious, turns it on - only to be shot up into the cosmos. Luckily, his suit is able to absorb the impact of the landing, otherwise it surely would have crushed his bones to dust. After the debris settles, the boy finds himself in a fantastic world full of floating rocks, strange creatures, and ancient mysteries.
On the surface, this may seem a little played out. In some ways it is. The truly brilliant thing about the game though is in the way that it’s presented. The action is wrapped up within the meta-narrative of the man telling his daughter a bedtime story. Through exploration, you can find small areas that trigger voice over dialogue between the two, serving as a way to expand on their relationships and develop their personality. Sometimes, these snippets are humorous anecdotes, funny questions the daughter asks the man; sometimes, they’re serious philosophical expressions. In either case, the voice acting and narration is sprinkled in so perfectly over what you’re experiencing that you’ll feel like you really are playing through a bedtime story.
The environments achieve a dreamlike beauty, with a kid-friendly and cartoonish art style which just adds another layer to the illusion that the game tries so hard to maintain. The huge floating waterfalls, quaint rustic villages, and even the deep darkness of the caverns serve to further drag the player down into the world A Story About My Uncle creates. It sheds off the grime and realism so often seen in modern games and films. The great thing is that A Story About My Uncle doesn’t brush off this imagination-soaked comfort blanket, but instead seeks to drown you in it. It doesn’t run from what it is, it embraces it. It creates something magical out of something simple and goes on just long enough for you to be taken in by it and ends when you don’t want it to.
One of the hardest things for a developer to pull off successfully is to pull the player into its world and keep them there even after it’s all over. It’s like a book you wished never ended. The simple beauty of A Story About My Uncle is found in its endearing characters and fantastical world, and they’re enough to make any shortcomings in the controls and the simplicity of its mechanics almost irrelevant. Honestly, we almost wish we didn’t have to grapple anything at all, and could have just strolled through the world and its story as an observer, not a player. That’s truly something we rarely say about any game… ever.
We’re not in the business of ruining the specifics of the story, so if you want to know what happens we suggest you buy the game and play it for yourself. It’s absolutely worth the asking price. No question. It costs less than 15 dollars, and clocks in at between 4-6 hours - depending on how much you want to explore. And we highly recommend exploring as much as possible to unlock some of the story goodies and awesome landscape views that may slip through the cracks during a speed run. Play this game slow. Savor it. If you do that, even the frustrations won’t seem so bad in comparison to the overall experience. And in the end, that’s what a game is - an experience. A Story About My Uncle is a beautifully crafted storytelling opus, and Gone North Games should be proud to have created it.
Kyle Barrows
@@OneEarthPilot
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