Gibbon: Beyond the Trees Is A Beautiful Game About Deforestation

thegamer.com:

As an urban-dwelling, ground-walking human it’s not easy to imagine what it feels like to be a gibbon swinging through a rainforest full of tropical birds and wildlife, but in the sublime Gibbon: Beyond the Trees I got a thrilling taste.

Vienna-based indie studio Broken Rules has created a gorgeously-drawn and lovingly-crafted game that effortlessly weaves in a profound point of view that lingers long after you’re done playing it.

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You are a gibbon, living in your natural habitat of the Southeast Asian jungle with your gibbon partner and child. You swing through the trees, slide down branches, and leap through the air, trying to gain speed. This movement, which is known as brachiation, based on the way real apes swing through the trees, feels fantastic, and the rhythm and flow of this reminded me of the iOS classic Tiny Wings. But Gibbon expands on this core by looking and sounding incredible.

Its hand-painted visuals are vibrant, painterly, and evocative, providing a feast of backdrops including different jungle types and moving through day and night. Its vivid jungle noises are also a textural joy – with a variety of bird whistles, tree-top fizzles, and gibbon calls sounding out over a score that changes thematically as the game progresses. It was simultaneously soothing and stimulating.

Broken Rules’ game was made with the consultation and help of the people native to the places Gibbon is set in, and this cultural specificity shows, especially in the dwellings and markets of the humans in the game. As you progress, things become gradually harder as the distances between the trees start to grow. Here the game starts to elevate,