Of Bird and Cage

This dark depiction of Beauty and the Beast works, but only if you recognize what you’re getting into: a musical experience focusing on an abused psyche desperately trying to break free from known shackles, only to fly right into a cage that represents both prison and freedom.

Of Bird and Cage is not a good game and I can only think of a small subset of people who might enjoy it: fans of progressive rock with a love of soapy narrative drive titles and an ability to ignore presentation issues. Anyone else should avoid playing the game, even if it is relatively short at around two hours. The developers are certainly attempting an ambitious mix and they should be applauded for that. But a lot more investment in coherent gameplay and a good story is required to make it a success. Get the soundtrack created for Of Bird and Cage if you love the artists involved because it really does not work as a video game.

Combining the operatic aspects into a video game means that the viewer becomes an actor and divides the attention of the player between trying to figure out what they have to do and what is going on in the rest of the scene. It is a balancing act that the team at Capricia Productions have not quite managed to overcome, and yet I want to see what they can do with the format in the future.

It’s not only the kind of game that you can finish in an afternoon, it’s also the kind that doesn’t leave much of an impression on you after the fact. While it’s able to roll down the road, it’s doing so holding things together with zip ties and a dream. It’s the kind of hot mess where the best experience would be to just give the album a listen on Spotify, because everything else just doesn’t do it justice.

I suspect Of Bird and Cage works best as an album first, and maybe a speed runner video as a distant second. Perhaps by the end Gritta escapes her prison and finds the support she needs to reclaim the light of her life in one of the possible endings, but given the oppressively deep hole she starts in, I’m not convinced that the game believes she deserves it. Though she most certainly does.

Writing a negative review can feel cathartic when it’s in response to lazy, sleazy, or greedy game design, but this isn’t one of those reviews. Of Bird and Cage is very clearly a passion project that aims to do something new and exciting, and, while it does a few things very well, it just doesn’t have a solid enough foundation to make it fun to play. I love the music and I like the story that they were trying to tell, but sloppy game mechanics, poorly developed narrative beats, and disappointing visuals make this a game I can’t recommend for most.

In the end, Of Bird and Cage left me with a terrible taste in my mouth, and I wondered how it managed to get released today. In fact, it’s so bad that I would almost recommend it to connoisseurs of terrible games, but frankly, I’m not sure I could live with my conscience.

Of Bird and Cage is an experimental music album that pairs interactive elements with the songs to create a unique experience. However, the game is plagued by bad mechanics and a story that is uninteresting and devoid of nuance.

The concept of an experimental, interactive music album was great, and the fact that musicians associated with Epica, Within Temptation, Kamelot or Asking Alexandria were involved, was very promising and impressive. Unfortunately, the game turned out to be an amateurish mess. The whole gameplay is very poorly executed, the story is cheap and approaches difficult subjects without a trace of finesse, and the voice acting is simply horrible. The worst part is, the music is okay at best. [08/2021, p.54]

As a game, it is not up to scratch. While the characters and the story might be good enough for a music video, it’s not good enough for a video game. It is clear these are music video characters, sometimes in great emotional scenes, but often feeling two dimensional. The gameplay is sometimes nice, but often lacking in a discernable thread of logic, and is undercut when you see how little influence you have on what is clearly a prescribed set of events.

Of Bird and Cage has only one problem: it is terribly done. Leave the poor Gitta alone with her misery.

Of Bird and Cage is an interesting idea fatally flawed in almost every aspect of its execution. It ultimately fails to reach even “so bad it’s good” status due to poorly thought out and implemented mechanics wrapped in a visual and narrative tedium. Too clunky to appeal to gamers and too incoherent to impress newcomers, it lands nowhere and looks sloppy while doing so. The few moments where everything clicks into place are few and far between.