CONCRETE GENIE
The devil’s in the details… or could it be the painted genie?
A LOOK THAT'S REMINISCENT OF SOME OF THE BEST STOP-MOTION FILMS OF THE LAST DECADE.”
The fishing village of Denska was once prosperous, but after a series of disasters those days are long gone. The streets are quiet save for a group of very unhappy youngsters, most of whom ride around on their bikes and lash out at the brick walls that can’t fight back – and then there’s you, Ash. Ash remembers what the village used to be and still visits it – despite his parents’ warnings – to make the most of a quiet place to sketch. That doesn’t last long as the town’s other teens find him and tear up his sketchbook, scattering the pages to the wind before abandoning him at a derelict lighthouse. But, in the tradition of many a kids’ animated film, Ash is not alone; one of his creations, Luna, comes to life. Sporting a look that’s reminiscent of some of the best stopmotion films of the last decade, what follows is a graffiti-painting story arc that’s just a bit too wholesome to sit near Tim Burton’s earlier work, rather falling in line with the likes of Laika (which is far from a bad thing).
A BRUSH WITH GREATNESS
With Ash’s oversized paint brush and magical living paint in hand (as well as whatever torn-out sketchbook pages you can get your hands on), you have access to a not-insubstantial library of stamps that you can manipulate the basic shape, size, and placement of using the DualShock 4’s in-built motion controls. It’s a no-stress outlet for creativity that, thanks to the use of premade designs and avoidance of any fine detail work, mostly avoids the common pitfalls of motioncontrol-based mechanics. We thought we’d chafe at the inability to create our own totally original designs in the main game but picking creative flourishes from someone else’s sketchbook makes for a laid-back experience that’s welcoming to players with a wide range of artistic inclinations.
However, you don’t just paint the town. As well as daubing Denska in delightful designs, you conjure genies from the concrete walls. Drawn from a separate library of stamps, these inked imps add variety to the painterly proceedings, requesting specific designs and interacting with your master strokes in charming ways.
A GOOD SCRAP
Most of your time in Denska is spent avoiding the other disaffected youths – usually by skittering across rooftops – while you try to brighten up the place. The rundown village itself is beautiful in its own way even before you take a paintbrush to its darkened walls. While it’s dingy, it doesn’t look bland without your designs, and provides a complementary contrast to your bright brush strokes and splashes of colour.
Denska is a place perfect for platforming and exploration, in spite of its (at times) difficultto-parse map. However, its tight alleys are often not as well suited for decidedly less non-violent pursuits. We don’t want to spoil one late-game mechanical shift too much but Ash finds a few new uses for his painterly powers. These encounters can go on a bit as they are designed to make the most of new mechanics that see limited to no use outside the final chapter. The tiny gamers in your life will love this late-game surprise but it feels a little too surface-level for us to be fully endeared to it. That main switch up aside, we do enjoy Ash’s newfound ability to skate around town on magic paint and wish we’d had access to this speedier way of getting around much earlier.
That said, the late-game twist speaks to Concrete Genie’s scrappy sensibility; it’s a game you can’t help rooting for even as it doesn’t always manage to join up all the dots. As we’ve already said, we love its stop-motion inspired art direction but wish it let its visuals do more of the talking. As it is Ash is a character who states the obvious when the game’s visual storytelling has a strong enough foundation to say it best when he says nothing at all. Occasionally, Ash’s lines are necessary to hammer home a moral point for tiny wees, but we feel it would be a stronger experience if the spoken dialogue were entirely removed – and that’s before we even get into the bullies’ trite torments.
SKETCHY AT BEST
We do appreciate the point the story is trying to make. Each of Ash’s bullies is revealed to be struggling with something at home, offering an explanation for their actions but, as the game is quick to point out, not a justification. It’s a bit more nuanced than what we’re used to in children’s media, the bullies warranting our empathy but not our pity or outright scorn. There’s even a neat little redemption arc, with Ash’s art being the conduit for understanding between
“DENSKA PROVIDES A COMPLEMENTARY CONTRAST TO YOUR BRUSH STROKES.”
the cast. However, its main flaw is being entirely too neat, implying that befriending your bullies is always possible or for the best. It’s cathartic to see the group come together for the sake of Denska but, due in part to how thinly sketched your adversaries are, it’s a resolution that leaves us feeling a little unconvinced.
After completing the main story, there are still reasons to revisit Denska. Beyond collecting any sketchbook pages you’ve missed, returning with a full book of scene stamps and being finally able to complete genie requests you’d had to skip over makes for a zen postgame experience.
Free Painting mode gives you the option of a clean slate with four blank canvas locations to choose from and, if you’ve got the PS VR headset and PS Move controllers to play it, there’s also a light VR Experience to get stuck into. Taking all this into consideration makes the standard edition’s £24.99 price point extremely reasonable, though for ten quid more the deluxe edition includes a digital artbook that presents an in-depth look at the visual evolution of the title over the course of development that’ll be of interest to the tiny or teen creative gamers in your life. But even without access to the art book, it’s clear how much love and attention has gone into every line and stroke of Concrete Genie’s visuals. We’re in no rush to leave Denska, eager to continue mixing and matching every stamp in our palette across the fishing village’s walls for some time to come.
VERDICT
It’s hard not to be won over by a game all about bringing out the best in places and people through creativity. Concrete Genie impresses with flying colours. Jess Kinghorn