French for the word grey, Gris is a casual platformer featuring beautiful watercolor art direction and a harmonic soundtrack as a girl traverses a dream-like environment to return color to a fractured world. Armed with the power of transforming into a block or stingray, before being granted back her voice that inspires new life to the setting, the girl collects bits of light while escaping the black oil that seeks to consume her.
It’s akin to a gorgeous children’s book, with splashes of life as it inspires the player to move past the bleakness of tragedy or hardship and find the proverbial beauty inside. But, also like a children’s book, the exploration of that theme or its relation to mental illness is surface level in depth. Compared to more recent games like Celeste or Limbo that handle similar issues in a deeper or more original take, Gris relies entirely on aesthetic weight to convey motifs of grief and depression.
The game essentially plays itself with none of the challenging platform aspects of Celeste that represent the inherent struggle of the character dealing with the emotional gravity of her situation. During one section of Gris, you’re being chased by baby’s first metaphor as a black eel threatens to swallow her whole as she frantically swims upwards, but you also can’t really lose this part. In fact, most of the game you just glide through the levels as the pretty scenery plays out before you. Limbo is in a similar camp, but you actually die in that game, make mistakes, or watch your guy stumble through the level causing the gameplay to reflect the themes. Gris doesn’t take the necessary step of using its interactive medium to explore its subject matter, which is paramount to a short experience that has no words.
That being said, it’s still a pleasant experience, especially the water level as you effortlessly glide about the caverns. For people searching for something more laid-back, the lovely visuals and soothing music help accomplish the same job as a candle-lit, lavender smelling meditative room with a sounds of rain CD playing in the background or a nice stroll through a park on a warm, spring day.
The echoes of a white noise machine in my therapist’s office got developed into a game.