Gravity Bone

Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:48:00 GMT

Gravity Bone

Gravity Bone is a stylish first-person action game set in the seedy world of Nuevo Aires. The game is almost painfully short, but has enough panache in its two levels to make it somewhat of an indie sleeper hit of the end of 2008. Creator Brendon Chung has an impeccable flair for graphic design, and imbued Gravity Bone with a look that invokes Portal with its utilitarian graphics and deadpan sense of humor. But whereas in Portal we’re confined in a sterile world of white and gray, GB is bursting with delicious color, and features blocky-headed characters that are infinitely more interesting to look at and interact with than the frightening Realdolls game players are often forced to contend with in modern FPS’s. Now if only it didn’t feel like we were walking in on it during the last act…

(Thanks, Zaphos, Tim, and others!)

TIGdb: Entry for Gravity Bone

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Comments

  1. Super anon said about 2 hours later:

    This is just a great little game. Loved the stylish visuals, the atmosphere, and the subtle humor (“Safety first: Press space to jump”, the cute debriefing animation). The chase at the end was exciting, and I was disappointed to find how short the game actually was. Took about 20 minutes from start to finish, but I loved every second of it.

    I would love to see more from this guy!

  2. YuRiPa said about 2 hours later:

    His page is at http://www.blendogames.com if you want to see some of his other stuff. I found Grotto King quite enjoyable.

  3. alspal said about 4 hours later:

    This looks incredible.

  4. Adamski said about 4 hours later:

    I’m instantly reminded of the Tofu Kubrick range X)

    http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1B2DVFA_enGB225GB228&q=kubrick%27s+tofu&btnG=Search+Images

  5. Untitled said about 4 hours later:

    That was fun, but agreed, way too short :/

  6. Cas said about 4 hours later:

    I think TIGS needs a “RealDoll” tag for news stories.

  7. pragma said about 7 hours later:

    “I want my MTV.”

  8. deadeye said about 9 hours later:

    Played this the other day when the thread was posted. I thought it was quite good.

    I was okay with the length though, I guess I don’t mind short games. But yeah it did kind of feel like you were coming in at the end of the story.

  9. fartron said about 9 hours later:

    Is this the same Brendon Chung who made Citizen Abel?

    Citizen Abel 4 was the best single player map I ever downloaded.

  10. fartron said about 9 hours later:

    Holy shit this is the NEW CITIZEN ABEL?! You really should mention that in the post.

  11. null said about 9 hours later:

    Realdolls? Really? I don’t know what games you’ve been playing, but they solved that problem a long time ago starting with Half Life 2 and the complex facial expression system they had set up in that game. But then again, I doubt you’ve played anything other than 2D platform games in the last decade so that comment doesn’t surprise me.

  12. null said about 10 hours later:

    Well, unless you’re talking about games made by Bethesda. Yeah, those are indeed realdolls, hahaha.

  13. Derek said about 10 hours later:

    My point was actually that, from an artistic standpoint, making a character that is stylized can achieve a stronger effect than trying to render something realistically. That’s why people still draw and paint after the invention of the photograph.

  14. Derek said about 10 hours later:

    Also, yeah - you beat me to it:

    http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com/images/9/94/Face2-1.jpg

    D:

  15. Aptennap said about 11 hours later:

    Arrgh Im stuck on the second level, awesome though!

  16. AuthenticKaizen said about 12 hours later:

    totally deserves the frontpage. awesome game!

    @aptennap after you have photographed the 3rd bird you have to master a little jump n run passage which involves not to fall down…

  17. falsion said about 13 hours later:

    I didn’t even notice that this game was running the Quake 2 engine. I thought it was maybe using the Quake 3 engine due to how the game boots up, or something more advanced (when I saw the actual game). Is this game using bloom? I didn’t know you could do that in Quake 2.

    But then again, the stylized graphics are what really make it work. They have this timeless feel to them that look “up to date” even on an dated engine such as Quake 2, to the extent where you don’t even suspect that it is running on the Q2 engine at all.

  18. falsion said about 13 hours later:

    The only thing is that it needs some sort of intro, something to introduce the gameplay or plot a bit. It does feel like you just jumped straight to the end of the game.

    BTW, what is this “Citizen Abel” stuff people are mentioning? I googled it and found a map pack for quake, but it seems to be a series of random missions done in typical Quake 2 graphics rather than anything related to the game in this post.

  19. Sleazy E said about 15 hours later:

    This is probably one of the best indie games I’ve ever played. I may try to convince the creator to make it into a full game, rather than more of a first and last act.

  20. Ilia Chentsov said about 23 hours later:

    Well, 3 things:

    • It doesn’t need an intro. (Well, the first level is an introduction of sorts.)
    • It doesn’t need a sequel.
    • Its length is quite satisfactory.

    In other words, the thing is complete.

    As for earlier Citizen Abels, haven’t played them myself, but here’s a description of CA4.

  21. H311 said 1 day later:

    I want a full game RIGHT NOW!

  22. pandafresh said 1 day later:

    this was incredible, would love to see a longer game done in this style

  23. Anonnn said 1 day later:

    I’m at the part where I photograph the 5 birds and I’m stuck D: I have the hammer, the spray and the camera, but I’m missing one item. What is it and where

  24. mots said 1 day later:

    anonnn , you can jump on the flag pole to the other doors

  25. banana said 1 day later:

    half-life 2 has one of the worst cases of real doll characters i’ve ever seen

  26. mr.zippycrow said 1 day later:

    This is really cool. It definitely needs to be made into a full game.

  27. Gandalf said 2 days later:

    it´s a great game, but i do not find the last exit.

  28. pandafresh said 2 days later:

    the last exist is just the elevator from the beginning of the level.

  29. N said 2 days later:

    Reminds me of Nolf… nice little gem nonetheless

  30. DouglasBackhand said 3 days later:

    Banana: How can you say HL2 had real doll characters? Compared to other games, say Doom 3, the character models are subtly stylized, lending a more intimate, simplified feeling, like a cartoon. And the scene where Eli Vance jokes around with Alyx in the lab? Anything but real doll. To be fair, though, creating expressionistic characters in 3D is incredibly hard to do, and will (probably) never come close to the personalities we can conjure up from looking at a sketch.

  31. Gary Moody said 4 days later:

    I enjoyed this game lots, but no item 3 and the hero dies at the end? Strange ending. I thought I was missing something and emailed Brendon and he confirmed that the hero does die.

    That said, I really did enjoy this game.

  32. pandafresh said 4 days later:

    hey, good job spoiling the ending for folks who havent played it yet haha

  33. Lopin said 4 days later:

    OMG Gary Moody hope u get crabs tonight for retribution for what you just did. -_-

  34. BDave said 5 days later:

    Great game, and the ending is hilarious.

    I looked around for secrets, but the only thing I found was at the beginning of the first level, to the right of the elevator exit, is a balcony you can reach by some creative jumping. There’s a door there, but it’s locked…

  35. henrietta said 6 days later:

    Couldn’t initialize OpenGL renderer! Creation of the window/context set-up Failed!

    I can’t play it and I’m not sure what to do… does anyone have any advice?

  36. Gary Moody said 6 days later:

    OMG, I am bad. I honestly didn’t mean to spoil the ending. I am a total newbie at playing games and thought I was missing something rather obvious.

    I am truly sorry.

    Maybe my previous post can be deleted?

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