Much as a great novel unveils the world in streams of language, Giant Sparrow’s trailer for their upcoming title, The Unfinished Swan, promises the unfolding of a striking and mysterious world rendered in black and white.
The game’s core mechanism is the use of black paint blobs that can be thrown, from a first-person perspective, onto the seemingly blank canvas of the screen. What this mechanism reveals is a world of painterly landscape reminiscent of Myst— if Myst were depicted in chiaroscuro.
On playing a demo of the game, Susan Arendt at The Escapist writes,
The landscape isn’t completely barren, though, as small bursts of color exist here and there, highlighting an item that you probably want to investigate. A splat at a Drop Cap will reveal a portion of the story of the king whose city you’re exploring. He tried to find exactly the right color for his garden, but couldn’t quite do it, and soon discovered he had other problems. Each chapter adds more to his tale.
The Unfinished Swan seems equally invested in painterly and literary traditions, proposing the use of visual revelation not only as a stylistic choice, but as an integral element of narrative. Look for The Unfinished Swan later this year on PlayStation Network.
[via The Escapist]