Broken Rules’ Old Man’s Journey is a visually captivating game. It’s not trying to be realistic or mimic the accuracy of real life proportions or lighting. Instead, the developers went in the complete opposite direction, making use of the Nintendo Switch’s unique GPU features to maximize on rendering colorful, whimsical designs based on a 19th century painterly aesthetic.
What this means is that there are a lot of visible brushstrokes through the coloring and and shape of the objects. It gives the game a constantly vibrating sense of verve through vibrant applications of color and tone.
It may be difficult to put into words but the trailer most certainly helps paint a clearer picture, which follows an old man who receives a letter from a mailman one day and decides to leave behind his house out in the middle of nowhere and make a great journey across the land with nothing but his wits and a few survival tools. It’s a completely non-traditional game but it is a 2D adventure. It’s easy to mistake it for an arthouse cartoon, but it’s actually a video game. Check it out below.
I have to say… every design and community and artistic award this game was given leading up to its release was well deserved. The trailer alone really took me by surprise. Mostly for the fact that the developers are at least attempting to do something different within the genre and make use of the Switch to tell an interesting story.
The game will support 1080p natively in TV mode and 720p during the portable play. You’ll be able to play the game in three different ways, either using the pointer, the Joy-Cons or the touchscreen.
Huge props to Broken Rules for pursuing an art-style and a visual tone that the other larger publishers haven’t even tried to implement into their games. I just can’t get over how good Old Man’s Journey looks.
But of course, graphics are just one part of the equation. How well does the game play? Well, there’s actually 10 minutes worth of gameplay footage available for Broken Rules’ Old Man’s Journey that was published courtesy of YouTuber Contranetwork. You can get a look at the early goings of the game and how well the game operates in real-time with the video below.
We don’t know what sets the old man off on his journey, but I’m sure you’ll find out before it’s all over.
The game is played like a point-and-click adventure. You can move into and out of the backgrounds just by clicking on them, it’s pretty neat.
In order to progress through the stages, you have to bend and manipulate the parallax layers of the environment so the old man can reach his destination. Also, the soundtrack is freaking heavenly. There’s a great selection of interactive tunes present that really helps bring the journey to life. It reminds me a little bit of Theodore Shapiro’s original score for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
The game supports two players for the Switch version, and is available for $9.99. The game will launch in Japan starting February 22nd for the Nintendo Switch.
