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Concrete Genie (Ash to Mahou no Fude) is a beautifully designed, part puzzle, part platformer game developed by Pixel Opus, an in-house studio of Sony Interactive Entertainment that also brought us Entwined. Concrete Genie was announced at PGW 2017 and released on October 8, 2019, on the PS4 exclusively. The game has PlayStation VR and Move functionality, though the main story is playable with a controller.
Description[]
Concrete Genie is the story of a young boy named Ash. He loves to draw and will often sit and doodle in his notebook. One day Ash is confronted by a group of local bullies who grab his book and tear the pages from it. The pages are scattered around Denska, and Ash begins a quest to find them. On the way, he discovered a magical paintbrush with the ability to bring paintings to life. Equipped with this amazing item, Ash begins to paint the walls of the run down and nearly vacant city.
All the beautiful artwork is not appreciated by the bullies who still find enjoyment in tormenting Ash at every turn. Ash turns to his new creature friends, called Genies, which he creates on the site of his old chalk drawings he made as a child, for comfort but must still find ways to avoid the bullies. He can do so using an expansive set of parkour moves.
During gameplay, players will acquire up to 50 (roughly) brushes spread across five colors. The different shades have elemental properties which can be used to affect the environment. Players will need to combine colors to solve puzzles and progress into new territories.
Game Features (Wikipedia)[]
The player controls Ash and uses the DualShock 4's motion controls (or right stick, depending on settings) to create landscapes in the town of Denska. These landscapes turn into living portraits. How you paint creatures and what color you paint them will affect their personalities. For example, red paint will grant a creature fire-breathing abilities. In addition to free-style drawing, there is a set of core puzzles in the game that the player will have to solve through their artwork.
The player will be able to gain more access of Denska over time, but at the start of the game, the player will only have access to a single neighborhood. Throughout the game, the bullies will move through the town and cause the artwork to die. They can also bully Ash, so the player must avoid the bullies as Ash traverses the town. The player can also fix the ruined artwork.
The game is between five and six hours long. The developer was looking into a multi-player component to the game, but unfortunately this was never implemented.
Development (Wikipedia)[]
Pixel Opus served as the game's lead developer. Creative director Dominic Robillard says the game is heavily inspired by Sega's Jet Set Radio, while the concept of painting street arts came from one of the team members, Ashwin Kumar, who grew up in India. The game would not rate any players' creations because the team did not want to judge players' creation. The game features a story mode that deals with themes like bullying. The game was later delayed to late 2019, though PixelOpus confirmed that the game will be released with a mode for the PlayStation VR headset.
Reception[]
Concrete Genie was very well received upon launch, with it having a Metascore of 75, indicating “generally favourable reviews”.
GamingNexus toted the game as one of the best on the PS4, and most critics seem to agree that it is a great game. Specific attention was drawn to visuals, the ability to paint freely, and story.
Criticism was drawn to the combat, and how it was implemented midway through, and the shortness of the story.
Trivia[]
-The painting mechanic is similar to the stencil art from inFamous: Second Son, another PS4 exclusive, including the fact that both use motion controls, however unlike Delsin, the protagonist of Second Son, Ash does not use stencils for his art, and his painting is the main feature of the game, whereas the stencil art is side content and cannot be used at any time in the game like Ash’s paintbrush.
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