Review georgeypoorgey 3/5 · Mar 2, 2024
The perfect Buy-On-Sale-And-Beat-In-One-Lazy-Afternoon game
Blanc is a game where you play as a fawn and a wolf cub working together to survive a brutal winter and find their respective families. It is extremely light on plot (they face some adversities but what I described in the previous sentence is it) and gameplay (each character has a control stick, a jump button, and an action …
Blanc is a game where you play as a fawn and a wolf cub working together to survive a brutal winter and find their respective families. It is extremely light on plot (they face some adversities but what I described in the previous sentence is it) and gameplay (each character has a control stick, a jump button, and an action button). It is so light on gameplay that my wife AND two of my children got bored playing with me, and I ended up playing by myself. You may be asking why one would play a game this interactively sparse. Well first off, it looks like this:
Every scene has this wonderful blank-and-white/Inktober style. While it features some of the visual jank that accompanies most smaller releases, it does look consistently artistically pleasant. While my wife and kids did not want to play this game with me, they did like watching me play. The pleasing visuals, the (mostly) calming music, and the occasional mammalian howl create an atmosphere that just draws you in.
Which brings me to my second point- animals rock. If you have no love for animals just being naturally cool, you probably won't vibe with this game as just being with animals is a big part of the experience. Blanc delicately walks the line between humanizing their animals and keeping the animals wild. I was able to both relate to and be in awe of the deer and wolf.
Finally, I think this game is best played solo. Maybe if you have a proficient gaming pal who is patient and loves animals (and you yourself are a proficient gaming pal who is patient and loves animals) you could have a fun time. But I found my time playing with others to be overly simple. Even when I played by myself, I wouldn't describe this game as hard. Heck, there are no fail states that I experienced! However, the act of having six inputs that you operate (often simultaneously) adds enough complexity to make the game enjoyable to me- a guy who smashed buttons to win fighting games as a child.
