Game: Storm Boy: the Game
System: Nintendo Switch
Publisher: Level 77
Developer: Blowfish Studios
Age Rating: USA 10+| Europe 7+
Price: $5.99 |€5,99 |£5,39
Release Date: November 20th 2018
Also Available on IOS/PC/XBox/PS4
A review code was kindly provided by Level 77
Storm Boy: The Game is a video game adaptation of Colin Thiele’s book Storm Boy and takes place on the beaches of South Australia near the mouth of the Murray River. The game is release to coincide with New Holland Publishers’ 55th Anniversary edition of the book to go with the upcoming Storm Boy film. The game releases on the e-shop on the 20th of November. It is coming to all modern platforms.
The Story
Storm Boy lives with his father Hide-Away in a humpy around the Coorong, they have a neighbour called Finger-bone Bill. There is a sanctuary a short ways from where they live although many people hunt and trample there. One day Storm Boy finds three orphaned baby pelicans and takes them home. The weakest of which is named Mr Percival. When it’s time to bring them back to the sanctuary Mr Percival flies back and stays by his friend’s side from then on.
The game follows the rest of the events of the book, only showing certain lines. It lacks a lot of atmospheric detail. The book has a point wherein some people mention Storm Boy needing to go to school and it isn’t brought up at all in the game.
The Game
The game follows the story with lines from the book being displayed as you walk across the coast. You can only move along left to right which causes more lines to appear. Walking past certain points an icon will appear allowing you to play a mini-game. Such as collecting cockles, swimming or playing fetch with Mr Percival. These are non-essential and have no real end. Only one appears in the story and there is an option to skip it.
Overall
Graphically it’s not bad but I’m not very impressed. It is simplistic and takes place entirely within a couple spots. While descriptive lines weren’t needed when making it a video game, the appearance and design doesn’t convey the area nearly as well as the book does.
The game-play consists only of walking across and pointless mini-games. It takes only twenty minutes to play through making it just a bit shorter than the actual story. Some of the quotes are hard to read as they’ll appear over some scrub. Otherwise there are no technical issues.
As an adaptation I don’t feel it is worthwhile. In my opinion you’d be better off reading the book, or at least seeing the movie. There is also a new remake of the 1976 film coming early next year.
I’m sorry to say I don’t like it.