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Caw Caw. A Bird Story took me by surprise in that… it is literally a story about a bird. To help you understand, consider this: To the Moon (made by the same guy) was much more than just “going to the moon.” It was a rather emotional ride that made the player face the issue of loss–loss of memories, loss of self, loss of a lifelong love–it was heartbreaking, but it created a real feeling in the player that is not really found or explored that much in the gaming genre. In short, the moon ended up being a much deeper symbol that represented something real. Looking once more back to A Bird Story, it’s a bit of a let down that there was no deeper meaning. You can just take the title at face value–there’s nothing deep or profound here.
The entire story of the game is not completely awful (it helps that the game is only about an hour and a half long) and its told entirely without words, which is interesting. A boy, whose parents are never home lives a lonely sad life–his schoolwork is failing, no one plays with him on the playground–it’s a bit depressing. One day after school, he saves a bird from being attacked by an animal (giant badger?) and nurses it back to health. The bird sort of solves all the boy’s problems–he’s popular on the playground because suddenly he’s “the kid with the bird,” the boy isn’t lonely at home, and he’s motivated in his schoolwork by using the bird as the focus of his studies… but nothing really comes from any of this.
There’s a heavy motif of imagination where you’re not entirely sure if everything you see is real or in the boy’s head. He jumps off a building with an umbrella and floats safely to the ground. He builds a giant paper airplane and sails around the world to floating islands. He’s struck by lightning and crashes. The game never offers the barest hint of an explanation concerning any of these things; you have to make of it what you will through a sheer imagination of your own. I imagined that the bird was a representation of zest for life–a symbol of the boy’s choice to live on in the face of depression in spite of the gloomy circumstances around him. The game deserves non of my theories or explanations though, since it makes no effort on its own to throw any hints or clues to the player.
In a point of strange conflict, a school teacher and veterinarian try to take the bird away from the boy (presumably to nurse it back to health properly) and the boy escapes from them on a giant paper airplane into a storm, where he is struck down by lightning and the bird disappears. Then, with no substantial tension, the bird just reappears. There’s a bit more, but after that the game sort of ends, teasing at the sequel for To the Moon. It’s almost as if the developer was like “Yeah, sorry, I know this kind of had no point… uh, I’ll make the sequel to To The Moon at… some… point.”
In the end, the game had good music, and even though it was kind of a waste of time, it was pleasant enough to not be a total failure, and so I put it in Tier 2. Is it a game? No, not really. It feels more like it should be one of those shorts at the beginning of a Pixar film. You never really play the game; about 80% of the game is just watching sprite-art cutscenes. However, if you’re someone who is very low-key, and just sort of wants to watch a slightly interactive short-story about a boy and his pet, then go for it–in regards to that criteria, even though it’s a bit bland, it’s certainly well done.
