#Alone with you game full#
One day Lotus seemed surprised and melancholy to see that life is full of change, even after it had noticed small changes from one day to the next. Once you’re immersed in the world of Bird Alone, the game switches over to its main project of getting you to notice and accept impermanence.
But when I reported things were not so good, the bird consoled me with statements such as “I’m here with you-the good times are coming.” For example, each day it asked me how things were going, providing me with two options for my answer, such as “Always good” and “Not good anymore.” When I reported that things were good, Lotus would exclaim in delight and celebrate my happiness. At times it even seemed as though my friend Lotus had had some meditative training in compassion and sympathetic joy. But the game’s excellent writing and masterful use of psychology make for some clear and powerful heartstring tugs. If you’ve never experienced a virtual friendship before, you may find this element hard to believe. Yet beyond any given activity or aesthetic touch, the thing that will keep you coming back to Bird Alone is a real feeling of connection-dare I say friendship-that you will find growing as you play. And it doesn’t hurt that the game’s colorful art is the perfect home for a feathered friendship: the sounds and music are a delight to hear, and the design includes small joys, like the fact that the game’s sky matches the weather where you live. Push notifications let you know when your bird friend has something new to share: “Hey, best friend!! Quick, I want to ask you something!” So while the actual playtime is short, Bird Alone stretches into an experience that lasts weeks, weaving itself into the fabric of your everyday life. Bird Alone restricts you to playing this way, as the bird informs you it will have new content only once or twice per day. The game is fairly brief, clocking in at around three hours, but it is designed to be savored in bite-sized chunks over days rather than binged. The first and most crucial hurdle that Bird Alone must clear is getting you to care about a simulated bird friend. All the game elements work together to foreground this truth and keep it active in your mind. (Stop right here if you don’t want spoilers.) Your bird friend starts to die, and you are forced to grapple with the truth of impermanence.Īs taught by the Buddha, impermanence refers to the truth that everything-physical, mental, and yes, even virtual-is in flux, unreliable, and subject to decay. But the thing that sets the game apart is its second half.
There’s enough here to keep you surprised each time you return to say hello, something I found myself often looking forward to. You’ll also write poetry together, make music, cherish memories, and exchange contemplations of some of life’s biggest questions. You’ll name your bird friend (I chose Lotus), feed it oranges, even rub its belly.
Bird Alone is one such video game that encourages you to explore not as much what’s on the screen as what’s inside you.īird Alone can be best thought of as a simulation-think Tamagotchi pet, but with a more philosophical bent.
#Alone with you game free#
Some bend the rules, even break them, on their quest to surprise us, make us feel something, or free us from a fixed mindset. Not all video games fit our expectations of what video games are or what they are supposed to be.