Gravity Bone

Short, sweet, and strange

Strange as it may sound, I think one of the greatest things about indie game development is the lack of responsibility. While it is true that a lot of indie studios are businesses and thus, have a need to make money; just as many, if not more, are quite literally guys in their basements just having fun with some software. Big name studios have responsibilities. A responsibility to their financiers and publishers to bring in a healthy return on investments. A responsibility to their established fan-base to produce familiar material. A responsibility to customers to make sure the product is worth the cost. What exactly am I rambling on about? Well, quite simply, small indie developers don’t have to worry about any of that. And what exactly does that mean? Well, even more simply, they can do whatever the hell they want.

That brings me to this little gem that I happened to stumble on recently. It’s called Gravity Bone for those too impatient to finish reading this article and it was developed by and Blendo Games, aka Brendon Chung, and is apparently some kind of follow-up and/or sequel to some of his previous work (not available currently). A beautifully animated Quake 2 mod, Gravity Bone is a very strange first person/ adventure/ puzzle-ish, game. To say that this game defies simple classification would be the understatement of the year.You play as Citizen Abel, some sort of spy/mercenary for hire. You then proceed to embark on a number (two to be exact) of odd espionage missions for especially vague reasons.

You might be noticing by now that I’m having some serious trouble describing the specifics of this work. This is not an accident, nothing is very well explained in this game. From bright beginnings to the sudden and climactic ending, you don’t learn a whole lot about this Citizen Abel and his adventures. Don't mistake this for a complaint, this was obviously a major design goal for the developer and the experience would not have been the same otherwise. The gameplay is simplistic, the ending is sudden and strange, and the entire escapade clocks in well under 30 minutes.

This is exactly what I meant when I said that small, indie developers can do whatever they want. A major studio releasing a 20 minute experimental game? Yeah, sure. But these kinds of projects are necessary for gaming to continue to evolve and improve upon itself. Gravity Bone defies mainstream game design and still manages to be memorable, fun, and unique. It’s free and it’s worth your time, so please, go check it out.

Everything from the crazy and abrupt ending, to the strange level goals, to small things like your oddly sorted inventory are open to analysis. Is it a humorous critique on game design? Is the full story there, just hidden underneath layers of symbolism? Who knows, I certainly don’t… yet. So if you’re up to exploring this game, hit me up, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Gravity Bone is available at the Blendo Games website, check it out.