Just watch a no-commentary playthrough of this game, it's essentially the same experience, if not better than actually playing it. I get it, A Bird Story is an experimental take on storytelling using video games as a medium, but honestly, I don't think it works as one.

There isn't a single line of dialogue in this narrative driven game. It's an interesting concept for sure, but for an RPG Maker like game, where only so much can be conveyed through its visual presentation... I just don't think it does enough. The gameplay is essentially a walking simulator with almost no optional interactions which leads me to question why it is a game in the first place rather than a machinima you can watch online.

Despite its cheap price, don't get it, unless if you REALLY want an easy 100% achievement game you can complete in an hour (which, I'll be honest. That's me right there so... touche Freebird...) .

A walking sumulator as a RPGMaker-style adventure about a boy who saves and care for an injured bird. I get what they where going for and it almost succed. But it felt off in pacing and tone. Most of the times it's a slow sureal story (sometimes excruciatingly slow) that then gets interupted by a litteral Benny Hill-scene. They are not calling it a game, but rather a "Interactive animation" and I feel that's fair. Paid less than 1€ for it in a sale and for that it's not bad, but I can't really recomend it. The pacing is too slow and I felt the emotional impact they where going for never really hit it home.

Everything is excruciatingly slow: the pacing of the story, the animation, the walking speed of the character…

As the previous title from the series (To The Moon), it makes me wonder again if video game is the best medium for this story (compared to, say, animation). After all, there is never anything interesting to do. The most usual form of interactivity is to walk from point A to (well-indicated) point B while your agency being frequently hijacked by boring cutscenes. Others involve frivolous tasks (e.g. fetching nearby objects) that offer no joy or whatsoever for you to do manually; some of them do not even make a narrative sense. This all gives me an impression that these elements of interactivity are added to the game for the only sake of making it a “game” and may very well all be replaced by cutscenes.

The one-hour-long story itself, which is about the relation between a boy and his bird, is of the most mundane nature, although related in a rather imaginative way and accompanied by a soothing piano soundtrack. This being the sequel of Finding Paradise (which I have not played yet), I can only recommend it to those who desire to savour every last bit of the world building this franchise has to offer.

Sooo boring. I couldn't do much and the story was so slow. I'm really dissapointed.
Good thing about it - it lasts only one hour.
I loved To the moon and that's why I thought that it'd be fun to try some other games from this publisher. Let's hope Finding paradise is better.

The story is quite interesting, although it has its moments, where it breaks the mood, sometimes quite harshly.
However, I do find it hard to call it a game, because there is not much gameplay. It is very story and cutscene driven and might have worked better as a short film, rather than a game.

It was 2012. To the Moon had become an indie hit, and had built an audience clamoring for more. The author himself was surprised, he had never expected such success from his first "real" work after all. Work had already begun on its next major story, but he wished not to be pigeonholed into a familiar formula. He also felt a fair amount of confidence in himself after getting successful, and began to work on a story personal to him.

Fast forward two(more like three!) years, and this story was released.

It was nothing like To the Moon - gone were the doctors, the patient, the memory manipulator. Instead, it was a story about a boy and his domesticated wild bird. It was told through a lens of childish imagination and wonder, and could've been a charming if rather predictable tale.

Once again though, the author made a few fundamental mistakes that ruined his premise. To begin with, he fails to keep his narrative straight, quickly flicking between fantastical scenes and more mundane shots, with little explanation for why they happen. This goes completely against the central conceit, which is that the kid inhabits a boring world and is lonely, and that the bird was thus a much needed outlet for him.

Even that wouldn't have been a problem, except the author ruins the charm of what's meant to be a sincere, simple story by getting visibly overindulgent, dragging out what would be a thirty minute narrative at best into a two hour marathon. It's incredible how little so many scenes say, and while some of them are a bit cute, it's hard to escape the feel of fatigue underlying many of them.

Lastly, the author demonstrates a rather disturbing trend of forgiving irresponsibility and selfishness on the part of the central protagonist. This was already visibly a problem in To the Moon, where Johnny got a free pass for chasing River for her autism, but in here it becomes more problematic. The boy literally causes the bird to almost fall to its own death, and yet it shows up in the end to thank him! This is perhaps the most blatant example of authorial apologizing I've ever seen, and it's something that sadly never really goes away from this franchise.

What we're left with then, is a pretty but vapid work. While To the Moon was arguably flawed and ultimately a narrative failure, it at least attempted to be interesting. This can't even really claim that, this is just a bloated, confused story that plummets straight to the ground. Only get it for (some of) its background art and music, stay far away otherwise.

No.

Please please please give me a way to zoom in or increase the size. I had to stop playing because I'm getting a headache from eye strain. I can't tell what the item icons are.. Once I thought that the character felt loved by a note, but actually they needed to go get their backpack. When another character requested a series of items using pictures, I couldn't tell what any of them were or recognize them in the room. I just walked around clicking the space bar and got lucky. But it was like, ok is this a horn? Or maybe some toilet paper? My eyes are so sore now please help those of us who can't see as well by making it so we can maximize the window or zoom in or something.

A short and simplistic (yet also needlessly surrealistic at times) experiment in visual storytelling. Works within the context of Finding Paradise and not much as anything else. Not recommended to play when tired because you might fall asleep.

the game, if you could call it that, is just a half-baked story with little substance. regardless, the soundtrack is great and highly recommend you give it a listen.