Wouldyoukindly.com – Review: Girl With A Heart Of…

Sometimes while in the process of screening games for review, you come across a word or phrase that you can’t help but notice.

This time, that phrase was “experimental interactive narrative”.

This ~~game~~ interactive narrative is called Girl With A Heart Of…, released by Bent Spoon Games. Not really knowing what that phrase entailed, I decided to jump in and check it out.

The ~~game~~ interactive narrative places you in the shoes of a young girl named Raven, smack in the middle of some kind of giant conflict that kills your father, injures your mother, and leaves you pretty shaken up. What this conflict is and your part in it unfolds throughout the course of the story, but to summarize; you are one of the “Dark” people. Your people are at war with the “Light” people, who have attacked your city. As a last-ditch effort at survival, a plan was executed that gave Raven a magical heart at birth; this would provide her with the power needed to do something about the never-ending war.

Of course, those are just the basics. Every other detail in between changes depending on the choices you make and dialogue trees you choose as you make your way through the ~~game~~ interactive narrative. It plays very much like a classic point-and-click adventure game; you walk back and forth through the same 7/8 screens running errands, finding and improving your “powers”, and generally listening to people talk. A lot. The controls are simple enough; tap and hold the side of the screen you want to walk towards, and any action available will pop up on top of the screen, where you can tap on it to perform said action. (Protip: If you’re using an phone instead of a tablet to play this ~~game~~ interactive narrative, you are going to want to crank the text size all the way to max. Otherwise, it’s maddeningly tiny and you will quickly grow angry by way of making unwanted selections that could very well determine major plot points of the game.)

Graphically, the ~~game~~ interactive narrative is equal parts dark and beautiful. Most of the backdrops have a hand-painted feel, and everything is very flowing and organic; much like the descriptions given in the story of pure light and pure darkness. It’s very stylistic, and may be one of the biggest things GWAHO may have going for it. The character portraits are well-done, but the character sprites and animations leave lots to be desired; however, since the focus here is on the story, I think those things are something that can be justifiably overlooked. The music and sound are almost minimalistic, but compliment the graphic style perfectly to create a dark, mystifying feeling throughout.

Being so storyline-focused (this is a “interactive narrative,” after all), you can expect that a lot of your time will be spent in conversations. You will want to take your time and choose your conversations wisely, as the storyline will change based on who you talk to and what you talk about. The interactions will also alter the powers you’re eventually able to use to cast spells in the game. At the beginning of the game, your magical heart is empty; as you progress, you can “imbue” special crystals with emotions that occur based on certain events. These imbued crystals merge with your heart, forming and shaping your magic skills. (At the end of my ~~game~~ interactive narrative, for example, Raven’s heart was imbued with Truth, Courage, Stone and Love. Truth gave her different dialogue options, courage gave her a mana regeneration bonus, stone gave her damage resistance, and love… love gave her some useless-seeming collectibles.)

Speaking of those magic skills; they seem kind of tacked on, only thrown into the game to provide a little more interactivity. You only need to use your magic three times in the actual ~~game~~ interactive narrative, and I can’t tell you when without spoiling the story. You have a “magic bolt” to shoot at what few enemies you encounter, as well as a defensive shield spell and a frivolous bubble spell that apparently had no other use than to look cool.

Upon finishing the story and a few hours of thought, I decided that “experimental interactive narrative” is a phrase used when a point-and-click adventure game isn’t completely fleshed out, and wants to stay away from the scrutiny of being in the “game” category. While this did make for an mildly interesting experience, as a game it fell completely flat. Check it out if you’re nostalgic for the old point-and-click days, but at a price of $2.99 you may want to wait for a drop in price.

Check out this trailer for the game; it does a good job of giving you the general vibe of the experience.