Developer: Lampogolovii
Publisher: Drageus Games
Platform: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
One Person Story – Review
Puzzle games have always been popular, sometimes they come with a story surrounding the puzzles but other times it’s just the puzzles. Well for One Person Story, as the name says, the whole game is the story of the life of a single person. The person is represented by a bouncy ball while the environment represents all the obstacles you encounter during life. You’ll not control the ball and play more like an overseer who controls the environment. One Person Story was developed by Lampogolovii and published by Drageus Games and we got a chance to review the game.
Story
One Person Story tells the story of life, starting with birth. You’ll follow the little ball while avoiding obstacles that represent real-life events most people encounter. Such as friends helping, or hurting you are represented by other balls blocking you or opening doors for you. The little story parts or explanations are narrated during some parts, usually when new obstacles appear, or the path is different. Nearly all of life’s pleasures and pains get mentioned such as friends leaving, being in a dark place, attraction, and so on.
The whole game is part of the story as explained above. You’ll mostly just get snippets of narration, but the flow of the story doesn’t require any more than that. The game would still be fun without the narration however it wouldn’t have that extra depth the story gives.
Graphics
The graphics of One Person Story are simple but look good. The game is mostly played out in-between two lines which form the path in which the little ball will bounce. Mostly simple shapes get used to represent obstacles. There are little graphics that accompany the narration, showing a little person who lives through what is being told. These graphics are nice but blend in a little bit, but this might be on purpose as to not distract from the game.
In some parts of the game, there is also a timer present which also blends in a bit too hard with the background. It would be nice if the timer was a bit more visible, so you can see it from the start.
Sound
One Person Story’s music is mostly classical with a mix of instruments. It nicely fits the storytelling atmosphere. Some instruments appear to give that extra tension in the music when you come to a harder level. The narrator has a soft voice which is really nice to listen to. Even though she only has to say little pieces at a time, she does seem to put the right feeling behind her words.
Gameplay
One Person Story is a puzzle indie game where you see the life of a person told by a bouncy ball. You are not the one controlling the bouncy ball, it bounces by itself and where it goes depends on what it bumps into. What you control is some of the surroundings, more specifically everything that is red. You start off only being able to control doors but as you progress along you get control of more items.
As mentioned before, you control everything that is red however, there are often also blue versions of items that you could control. For example: Red spikes can be retracted by you, but blue spikes can’t. This means that you’ll have to use what you can control to avoid what you can’t. The bouncy ball keeps bouncing no matter what, so unless there is, for example, a red door, you can’t stop it.
As the game goes on, new obstacles appear and previous obstacles will become trickier to avoid. Often, you’ll need to predict where the ball will bounce to, since it could be bouncing right into some spikes if you’re not careful. Once you complete a level, your ball bounces on to the next one following the path. Even though the levels seem continuous you can’t actually go back. This is good since otherwise, you could accidentally go back which would be annoying. In One Person Story, the puzzles can either be easy to figure out or get you stuck for a while, even if the controls are fairly simple. The game uses only one button during gameplay so it’s easy to figure out. It’s the puzzles themselves that can make it quite challenging.
Conclusion
One Person Story is a very fun game with a deeper meaning than just puzzling. The game’s controls aren’t very hard to figure out so it is suited for casual gamers and hardcore puzzle gamers alike. It’s quite addictive to keep figuring out puzzles, that is, until you keep getting stuck in one level. Not only do new obstacles get added, the puzzles also get trickier which keeps you entertained. One Person Story is not expensive at all and for the amount of fun that you get from the game, it surely is worth checking out. So, if you are looking for a fun puzzle game, give One Person Story a try.
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