Storm Boy, A Heart-Warming Tale Releases Nov 20, 2018

By: GeekyGamerGirl87

Every so often there is a game that comes to us here at thedailygamepad.com, that you are compelled to play. When I first was offered to cover Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy: The Game for the Nintendo Switch. I immediately said yes because I was drawn to the art style as well as the story behind the game. Although not a long game, the game does a great job of putting you deep into your feelings and does make one think. Before I go into my review, I would like to thank the Developers Level 77 and Publisher  Blowfish Studios for providing us at thedailygamepad.com with a free copy of the game to cover. It is due to their generosity that I can cover the game.

Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy: The Game is a game based off a 1964 Australian Children’s  Book by Colin Thiele. Not only has the book been turned into a game. There was a movie in 1976 and there looks to be a remake coming out in January 2019 (in Australia only it seems.) In this game, you take on the role of Storm Boy, a young boy who lives on an island with his Father Hide-Away Tom and another man name Finger Bone. Storm Boy’s mother has passed earlier on so it’s just Hide-Away Tom and Storm Boy now. One Day while out in the sanctuary Storm Boy comes across a nest of three pelican chicks. Storm Boy decides to take them back home and raise them. He names them Mr. Proud, Mr. Ponder and the third is given the name, Mr. Percival. As chicks, Mr. Proud and Mr. Ponder are stronger than Mr. Percival who seems to be the runt of the bunch as it is hard for him to feed. Eventually, with the love and nutriment of Storm Boy, the three baby chicks become adult pelicans in which Hide-Away Tom tells Storm Boy he must release them back to the Sanctuary as they can no longer afford to feed them.  Of course, this is a sad day for Storm Boy, and he understands that he must do this, even if he doesn’t like it. Sometime after he and Hide-away Tom release the pelicans to the Sanctuary, Mr. Percival comes back to Storm Boy. His Return makes Storm Boy happy as he was always Storm Boy’s favorite and thus you go on a heartfelt journey with Storm Boy and Mr. Percival.

Although the game is classified as an adventure game, I would say that the story is pretty good and feels more like an interactive visual novel. Amongst the story, there will sometimes be some parts to interact with the game. Such as playing a feeding game in which you feed the three pelicans, going out on a raft with Mr. Percival, and even Storm Boy pretending to be a pelican to name a few. The little mini-games are nice and relaxing. The games are overall simple, and you can play them for as long or as little as you want. If you play the mini-games for a little bit, the game can last a bit longer. However, I will say that one of the downsides to the game is if you are not interested in the mini-games then it takes about thirty minutes to play the game in its entirety.

Another interesting expect of the game was the way the story was told. As you move along the story, the game will generate the words to the story. Sadly, there is no voiceover in the game. Therefore, If you don’t pay attention, you can miss the story. On a good note, stopping  Storm Boy keeps the words in place, and if they disappear, you need to go back in the direction you came to read the words. I would have liked if the words stayed up a tad bit longer on screen as you were moving along through the game so that it would flow better. Again, this is just a personal preference.

Another issue, I did experience with the game is that if you exit the game, and you go to the game’s main menu and try to select continue it kept restarting the game from the beginning as if the selection was unable to select the continue option. I was left in a state of confusion at times because I wasn’t sure which option was being selected. After finishing the game, I then found out that it does eventually save and allows you to continue the game. I believe that once the game screen fades to white that is your checkpoint, so you can go back to where you left off.  However, as I stated before the game is about thirty minutes long, so you don’t need to stop and continue the game.

When it came to the controls for the game, I did find them a bit strange. You can use both the joy-cons as well as the touchscreen to navigate through the game.  When I played the game, I played with both sets of controls. This is since some of the mini-games ask you to play with the joy- cons, and others require you to play with the touchscreen. Sometimes the controllers were a little bit stiff, and I found myself enjoying playing with the touchscreen more.

As I played the game on the Nintendo Switch, and the Nintendo Switch does not have an achievement system, I had to do some searching to see if achievements would be available for the game or not. I will say that from what I peeked at on the Steam Page for the game it did list Steam Achievements, so I can only speculate that Steam, XB1, and PS4 will more than likely have achievements. So, if you are an achievement hunter, this is going to be an easy game for achievements more than likely.  As far as trading cards go for the Steam Version, there is no mention of trading cards yet. Again that isn’t to say that the trading cards could be coming later on after the game has been released. However, if you are not an achievement hunter, then I would suggest getting the game for the Nintendo Switch. I was able to lay in bed and play the game and enjoy it because I wasn’t obsessing about achievements.

Overall, I think that Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy: The Game was a great game. My only big thing was I would have liked for it to been more story and fewer mini-games because I enjoyed the story of the game. The story is what really moved me, and it was beautifully told. Even though the game is relatively short, it will be the most heartfelt thirty minutes you have ever experienced in your life. If you would like to play Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy: The Game you can do so by purchasing it on the following platforms: Steam, Nintendo eShop, XBOX ONE, PlayStation Store, iTunes, and Google Play for USD 5.99.