➤ Blanc: The Hand-Drawn Cooperative Puzzle Game Review 🕹

Blanc combines the narrative of a fairy tale with the art style of a graphic novel, but its magic is often interrupted by technical problems and frustrating puzzles.

For comic fans, one look is enough to know if a work is by French hand: the softness of the lines, the subtle contrasts and the smoky use of pencil are unmistakable traits of the artists from beyond the Alps. In the first minutes with Blanc, the cooperative puzzle game protagonist of this review, we immediately noticed these distinctive characteristics and without looking at the authors and designers we understood that we had a powerfully French video game in our hands.

Developed by The case of the game and edited by Gearbox Publishing, Blanc is a large pencil drawing that comes to life to tell the story of the friendship between a wolf cub and a fawn desperately searching for their families after a snowstorm. While you may have already felt the story and gameplay of this game, it is its art style that impresses with its animation technique and complexity. The visuals and music are well intertwined, but it was often the case that the puzzles were very frustrating, breaking the magic that the game had created up to that point.

In this Blanc's review We will tell you about the great artistic work that the developers did to bring the game to life, but also how some game design needs hindered an experience that, if it had been more fluid, could have aspired to become a classic of the indie scene.

Senza's parole

Blanc: The Hand-Drawn Cooperative Puzzle Game Review — Blanc is a video game completely devoid of dialogues and texts

One of the identifying characteristics of Blanc, along with its graphic style, is that it is a video game without text or dialogue. Being the story of a fawn and a wolf cub who help each other overcome obstacles, it was not necessary to anthropomorphize the protagonists and give them voice or dramatic dialogue. For those who want to immerse themselves even further in the adventure, it is also possible to disable the icons that highlight objects to interact with or platforms to jump on. This way yours The game interface will be completely absent. and you will feel like you are living inside an authentic graphic novel.

With the cartoon world Blanc also shares a number of stylistic traits related to reactions and the expression of emotions. If the suffering of a dog is quite easy to communicate thanks to its typical howl, that of a deer or a duck presents obvious difficulties. This is where exclamation points come into play, to express surprise, small lightning bolts, to express anger, and a series of other graphic resources that appear around the heads of the animals we encounter to make us understand the situation. The only flaw in this system is that a negative feeling is often expressed both visually and aurally, but since the repertoire of available verses is very limited, we find ourselves trapped in a concert of squawking in the middle of a puzzle that does not. we could. solve .

Sometimes frustrating game.

With regards to gameBlanc never strays too far from the classic types of puzzles found in cooperative games. The two protagonists have a kind of special ability (the puppy can throw objects and the fawn can push them) and there is a mechanic through which it is possible to reach high platforms (which normal jumping cannot reach) by placing the two animals one on top. the other. other. If you've played Pode, the mechanics of this title will be very familiar to you, sometimes too familiar.

Blanc, however, can also be played solo controlling both characters. On Nintendo Switch, the right Joy-Con led to the puppy and the left to the fawn. At first it was incredibly confusing to understand the meaning of the camera movements, but then we began to master it and coordinate the progression of the two characters harmoniously. In fact, over time, the confusion linked to the movements of the analogues has transformed into the feeling of being weaving the story of these two animals with our hands.

distilled joy

When the puzzles don't become too frustrating or repetitive, Blanc reaches his full potential, which is that of a playable fairy tale with moments that warm the heart, drops of pure joy, insidious dangers and a very strong desire for redemption. Throughout its ten levels you will pass through ruined industrial complexes, tangled forests and pure white valleys through which you slide down the slopes. You will meet other animals in difficulty that you will help and make friends with as a backdrop to build the relationship between the two protagonists.

In fact, throughout the entire first level, the little wolf and the fawn can't even get close because they're afraid of each other. However, once they overcome the first obstacle together and find the tracks of their respective packs, the two begin to get closer and help each other more and more. There are moments of tension and joy and each level is resolved with a little happy ending because it tells the obstacles that the protagonists had to overcome to find traces of their families.

Attention animal lovers.

It is important to highlight an aspect that could become a major element of stress and frustration for a fairly broad category of players: those who have a dog. The music that accompanies the game is very beautiful, harmonious and emotional, but if you have a dog we recommend playing this game without sound. The little wolf character, the more irreverent of the two, often gets into trouble and has to ask the fawn for help. When he does this, the game plays a dog crying several times in a row. This verse, in our opinion, has been abused by the developers because it is played multiple times in each putting level. a lot of pressure on those who play. Anyone who has a dog knows that when he whines something is wrong and you have to intervene, sometimes urgently, so it is best to turn off the game's audio and play Blanc as if it were a real animated graphic novel.

It's best to turn off the music even when you're stuck on a puzzle you can't solve because more tense clues (like the ones at the end of the game) end up accentuating frustration if you find yourself stuck on a puzzle. for more than 10 minutes. Some puzzles also require you to act as a guide for characters who, however, tend to get stuck on some elements of the scenario. We had to restart the game several times to finally get a non-player character stuck and continue with the level. This is Blanc's greatest flaw: the breakdown of magic. In a game with such an intimate and emotional atmosphere (from this point of view it is a bit reminiscent of Journey) it is really frustrating to see torn away by force from a fairy tale world due to an error or technical failure.

Conclusions

Tested version Nintendo Switch digital delivery Vapor, Nintendo eShop Price 14,99 € Holygamerz.com 7.0 Readers (5) 6.7 your vote

Blanc, when it works, is like playing a graphic novel video game with a unique visual style and lovable, brave characters. It's a winter fairy tale to teach the value of friendship and resilience that lovers of puzzle games and cooperative games will appreciate. Unfortunately, technical difficulties and some game design choices prevent the game from gaining a place on the Olympus of indies, also due to the too frequent breaking of the delicate magic that the developers have patiently built. However, if you're not afraid of a little frustration, Blanc could prove a sweet companion for a cold weekend, perhaps in the company of a special person.