I’ve not played a game so childish (in the best way possible) as Concrete Genie in a long while. The game seems to be built both in gameplay and narrative to serve as an early video game for children—the bullying message is appropriate if a bit shallow, and the gameplay direction is clearly marked at all times on the in-game mini-map, leaving very little puzzle-solving. This amounted to the game being a bit more mindless of an exercise than I would like from a video game. Even so, the game presented a charming 3-4 hour story, and I intend to return for the Platinum trophy. Edit Platinum Trophy took an additional hour and 15 minutes.

While much has been made of the game’s bullying message, the most impactful message it holds for its older audience actually regards the artist at the game’s center, Ash, as he discovers the vocation of an artist. His kind heart, meek demeanor, and social isolation clearly play into Western stereotypes of the “artist type,” yet the game has a much more nuanced take on the craft itself, especially on the cycle of art influencing people and people influencing art.

Beyond the narrative, the game is just a freaking delight to play—light and darkness are not conversational metaphors, but lived realities in this game’s beautiful world.

The only things that holds Concrete Genie back from brilliance are a few annoying design issues: too-close button prompt distances, jumbled artwork, and unclear hit-boxes all hampered my play through. Unfortunately, these issues are persistent through much of the game and interrupted my enjoyment often, even if only in small ways.

If you are looking for a short, heart-warming, and beautiful game for a rainy afternoon, I heartily recommend Concrete Genie.

I do not have a single artistic bone in my body, and I say forthright that I would probably not have picked up this quaint indie game were it not for the fact it is free this month for PSN users. This circumvention of the rather steep £30 tag coupled with the fact I went in with no expectations likely makes me more lenient on reviewing this.

Nevertheless I enjoyed this for what it was, a heavily stylised and cartoonish little drawing game where you use your controller to draw (preset) neon monsters on walls and decorate them with (preset) tails, ears, hats and various other little bits to try to breathe life into these otherwise characterless creatures. But there lies perhaps the biggest problem (and surely the most grating for the artists), the fact there are many restrictions to what you can paint. Yes you can draw cute landscapes on just about every wall and theres a good amount of natural objects to choose from, but even if you manage to wrangle your controller into the shape you want these objects to take on the wall, by the time you’re done it still looks more like a great neon mess than anything resembling the natural world. The same is true for the aforementioned genies, as although there are numerous customisation options for you to drunkenly play ‘pin-the-tail-on the-genie’, the difficulty in making it look the way you want combined with the brief time you most likely will spend with these individuals before they become lumped together in your genie puzzle-solving army makes most efforts to make them standout futile (the most artistic genie I made was one with 8 gargantuan spider legs jutting out of its body, something I quickly altered after the first time I saw him bounding towards me at record speeds), in this sense they are much akin to the messy environmental drawings, just with a friendlier face. As mentioned, there are puzzles in this game that have to be solved to progress, although these puzzles amount to little more than ‘call the genie over and draw stuff for it’. The combat system they introduce is similarly simple and limiting, equating to little more than periodic button-pressing.

I had no qualms about the overarching story, yes it was simple and cliche, but it was done in a well enough way that I didn’t really mind. And how it incorporates a great change up in gameplay during the last chapter is quite well done too, making it feel truly like a final push against the ‘Darkness’. The world that this story takes place in is also an intriguing one, a forgotten fishing village enveloped by an unknown evil sets an effectively eerie atmosphere from the start, making all the more incentive to ‘paint the town back to life’ as standing back and witnessing some of the light you have brought back to Denska really helps to carry motivation for seeing out the story. Although the short completion time of this, even if you go for Platinum, stops most of the gameplay and story aspects from really shining.

All-in-all a unique little indie title doesn’t quite justify its £30 price tag due to all the limits it imposes on the players creativity. Still for the price of free you could do a lot worse and you’re bound to get some forgettable fun out of this.

A short narrative driven game that focused on a child that's being bullied.

This was right up my alley. I loved how creative you could get with the different painting mechanics and it was just short enough that it never outstayed it's welcome.

Oh and don't sleep on the VR mode. It's surprising cool.

This game is straight out of the PS2 era, in all the best and worst ways. The art style is unique and the story is charmingly earnest. For the first 4 or so hours of gameplay, I found myself in a very relaxed flow state. Even though I abandoned making my paintings sensible early on, I still found the act of painting soothing. The final couple hours of the game, however, completely changes the formula and takes a hard turn into a poorly executed action game. Nevertheless, I appreciate indie developers bringing some variety and trying something new. I'm looking forward to what Pixelopus does next.

Art can give people life but few games take that as literally as Concrete Genie. Pixelopus is stepping far away from its underwhelming debut, Entwined, to create a game all about, well, creating. From creating lively murals to creating adorable monstrosities with seven horns and four tails, Concrete Genie is a relaxing experience that won’t quite test your puzzle solving skills or patience but it will give you an urban canvas and a decent amount of creative control over it.

Read the full review here:
https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/605017-concrete-genie-review

Charming and fun to explore, with what is at first an engaging (if simple) story about memory and the decay of a community. The genies are a great spin on the partner mechanic and sweet enough that you do get attached to your creations.

That said, I have no idea why they decided adding so-so combat to the final act was a good idea (though the paint skating was well-implemented and felt like it actually fit with the map design). I also found the quick resolution and turnaround with the bullies pretty naive to the point of being insulting - we got more personal backstory about their families than Ash's, all in aid of us forgiving them for some genuinely terrible behaviour that endangers others. No more toxic positivity. Society has moved beyond the need for becoming friends with the people who terrorised you.

Certainly not a complete waste of time but nonetheless a chore to get through. Can’t call this outright bad because the chief concept is novel enough and it’s executed with sufficient earnest panache that I found myself pleasantly amused by it at times. The art direction is pretty and the characters and “genies” charming enough to at least get through the story but the second I saw this relied on motion controls I switched that shit to manual and prayed the choppiness of the gameplay let up (which it didn’t lol). This might just be a case of me not being the intended player base however for this being a free PS+ title, I can’t complain too much.