In a giant floating city made of giant lanterns, Zig makes their way through folding cities and twisted alleyways — exploring the city of mortals and djinn — to try and find the 30 birds.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I look at art and feel like I know little of art, and sometimes I look at the deep, fully-realised cultures and stories of other lands and decide I know little of this world. 30 Birds leaves me like that. Its stories of Djinn and bird goddesses, it’s Persian art and it’s folded, flat-3D world makes me feel like there’s a world of history that I know nothing of.
I played through the smallest smidge of 30 Birds while at AdventureX late last year. It’s light and music puzzles are beautiful and enigmatic, it’s narrative and nonchalant chatter are threaded so deeply into the fabric of the game that its hard to tell what is relevant and what isn’t. It feels like you’re exploring a slice of a storybook, but a storybook where every character is from their own fable and you’re meant to know them all but you don’t.
I don’t know if 30 Birds is meant to feel like that, if it’s meant to feel that rich and vibrant, if it is then they’ve done a great job, if it’s not then maybe the developers, Ram Ram games, haven’t quite realised what they’ve got.
Here’s to hoping that we get to see more of 30 Birds soon or at least get a vague release date that we can start looking forward to. I’m desperate to dive into its colourful world again, to scoop up the titular birds and restore the, now absent, bird Goddess.
30 Birds is in-development with no targeted release date, it was played on PC at AdventureX, however, it was played using a gamepad. If you’re interested in finding out more about the game then follow the developers on Twitter.
