I’ve slipped in an extra post for today as no doubt many of you will have already met with and played as Octodad as it’s been around for a little while. 'Grief' on the other hand is a newly out game for the PC.
Grief (14.4Mb)
'Grief' is a free puzzle platformer with twenty levels. It's title is based on a girl's grief at missing all her favorite Teddy bears. It takes between two and three hours to play, but by design doesn’t have a save progress option throughout the game. So if you run out of time in hand, or find one level particularly difficult, the game can indeed cause you grief! Starting from the beginning again later can be notably painful, mind-wise, though there is an option to restart the present level while playing!
Seasoned puzzlers might complete the game in about an hour or an hour and a half. The game includes a brief tutorial during the early levels. You play as a young girl befuddled by the loss of her favourite toys. Her emotions and outlook interestingly affect various aspects of the game and her view of the world. Finding her lost toys of course restores clarity and happiness to her mind!
Personally I hope in time, the game author will provide a save game feature as firstly, some people don’t have a couple of hours or more to spare on one computer game, and secondly, it’s no fun if you constantly get stuck in one spot and have to later restart again and play through the previous levels just to get past the troublespot for you in the game. There is a pause option though, which I find essential after some hard concentration with the puzzles, and much needing a break!
The game does have good unique features of its own. There are special platforms that switch between two worlds, one light, and the other dark, where the layout differs partly between the worlds. These represent optimism/pessimism state, and depending on your optimism/pessimism state, you may be able to jump higher or squeeze into smaller spaces or have your abilities reduced depending on your present situation. An orange glowing area accesses the optimistic side of the level, where you can jump higher and also step on golden platforms. In the same way, entering the bluish purple portal accesses the pessimistic land of dreary blues and shorter jumps, but giving you the added ability to be able to crawl. There are other emotions such as confusion that can also affect alter the worlds or play. New items are introduced as you proceed through the levels including boxes you can push, ghosts you need to avoid and black orbs to collect with special characteristics/properties.
Each stage has a Teddy bear to find, whence you guide the young girl to the level exit. You don’t need to find all of the lost toys to complete the game. The stages start off easy enough but gradually get more and more challenging with some really clever puzzles to solve.
Some options i.e. particle effects, sound effects and music can be turned on or off in-game using the ‘B’, ‘N’ and ‘M’ keys respectively. If the game runs slowly, try turning off the particle effects - if you have a slower PC, or turn off background applications or reboot. You can restart a level with the ‘R’ key and pressing the ‘Esc’ key once will pause/resume the game.
Use ‘W,A,S,D’ keys to move and ‘K’ as the action key to open doors and portals.
The graphics are excellent and the music is outstanding and extremely atmospheric. You can also download the soundtrack from the first download link below at GameJolt, to play the brilliant music apart from the game if you would like to do so.
See if it gives you more pleasure than grief! Gameplay is very addictive and it very definitely deserves a place in your game download folder!
