The Lion's Song
| The Lion's Song | |
|---|---|
| Studio |
 Mi'pu'mi Games
|
| Publisher | Mi'pu'mi Games |
| composer | Dynamedion |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
Windows Episode 1: July 7, 2016 Episode 2: Nov 21, 2016 Episode 3: March 16, 2017 Episode 4: July 13, 2017 macOS, Android and iOS July 13, 2017 Nintendo Switch July 10, 2018 |
| platform | Microsoft Windows , macOS , Android , iOS , Nintendo Switch |
| Game engine | Molecule Engine |
| genre | Point-and-click adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Mouse and keyboard , touchscreen , Joy-Con or Nintendo Switch Pro controller |
| medium | Download |
The Lion's Song ( English for " The Lion's Song ") is a video game for PC , mobile phones and the Nintendo Switch . The game is a narrative point-and-click adventure and tells the story of the composer Wilma, the painter Franz and the mathematician Emma. It was developed and published by the Austrian developer studio Mi'pu'mi Games. The Lion's Song consists of four episodes, the first of which was released for PC on July 7, 2016. A complete edition containing all four episodes was released for the Nintendo Switch on July 10, 2018.
The Lion's Song was largely praised by critics and received the German Developer Award 2016 in the category "Best Indie Game"
Gameplay
The Lion's Song is a point-and-click adventure game in which the player experiences the story of four people in the early twentieth century. The player has to have dialogues with other characters in which he has to choose between different answer options and solve small puzzles in order to move the plot forward. The player controls a different character in each of the four episodes: in the first episode the composer Wilma, in the second the painter Franz, in the third the mathematician Emma and in the last episode the author Albert Vogl. As is typical for the genre, the player navigates the character through the game world by clicking the cursor . In the last three episodes it is possible to control the character freely through the scenes by selecting a destination to which the character then moves. In the first part, the game takes place almost exclusively in a mountain hut. There the character can not be controlled freely, but only z. B. be moved to another scene by clicking on the door. In the second and third episode it is also possible to navigate the character to different locations in Vienna using a city map.
During the game, the player has the opportunity to influence the course of the story through his actions. At the end of each episode you can see the percentage of all players who made the same decisions as you. At the same time, the player is given the opportunity to change his decisions and thus discover new connections to the other episodes. In the “Gallery of Connections”, a kind of museum that can be visited outside of the episodes, all connections between the individual episodes that the player has discovered are exhibited.
action
Episode 1 - Silence
In the first episode named Silence ( Engl. For "silence"), the player controls the composer Wilma Dörfl, the problems have to compose a new piece of music. Her friend and mentor Arthur encourages her to go to his hut in the Alps to find inspiration for her new piece outside the hustle and bustle of the big city of Vienna. On the way to the hut, a strong storm is brewing, which prevents her from leaving the hut too soon. When she got to the hut, she found a letter from Arthur. In this he explains to her that he has organized a concert in which her new piece should be the focus. That's why she has to finish her piece in just one week in time for the concert.
She is called in the hut by the innkeeper Leos, who tries out his new telephone connection to call his niece Nicole. On the following days, Wilma begins to develop a closer bond with Leos in further phone calls. She begins to use the ambient noises, such as the rain, the creaking beams or Leos' voice, as inspiration for her piece. Nightmares reveal how insecure she is about her relationship with her father, Arthur, and Leos. She is also confronted with her own problems, including a. faced their motivation. After she has finished her composition, the player has the choice of dedicating the piece to Arthur, Leos or her brother Otto. She gives her piece the title "Das Lied des Löwen" ( The Lion's Song) . Back in Vienna she played her composition at the concert organized by Arthur and received thunderous applause.
Episode 2 - Anthology
In the second episode called Anthology ( Engl. For "anthology" or " Anthology "), the player controls the talented young painter Franz Markert, the facets of personalities can visually recognize from the people around him. He is introduced to a society of art lovers by his grandfather, a well-known climber named Joseph, and is looking for a new model. He was invited there by a painter and friend of his grandfather's named Gustav Klimt , who exhibited a portrait of Franz depicting the composer Wilma in his salon. After the player has decided on a model for the next portrait and has painted it in his studio, Franz is dissatisfied with his picture: He is of the opinion that he was unable to recognize all facets of the model. He then spoke to the art critic Grete Lawniczak, who had already sharply criticized his picture of the composer the day before, and would like to hear her opinion on the picture from her. This advises him to go out into the “real” world, whereupon his grandfather takes him to the market.
At the market the player meets the actress Madame Thernhardt and during lunch in a coffee house the mathematician Emil Schell. The player now has the choice to paint one of the two: If the player decides in favor of the mathematician Schell, he will flee before Markert can start painting because he feels that Franz has seen through too much. Then the player has the option to paint the mathematician from memory, or to decide on the actress. No matter how the player decides: Franz is dissatisfied with his portrait because he did not manage to capture all facets of the model. When Franz presented the portrait in the salon to the art critic Lawniczak, she worried about him because he hadn't slept for a long time and after every picture he painted had dropouts , which meant that he lost several hours that he would not remember later can. Lawniczak then sends Franz to the psychologist Sigmund Freud . During the discussions with Dr. Freud begins to see his own facets for the first time. Back in the studio, he realizes that he drew a portrait of himself during his dropouts, which he had covered with a cloth.
Franz finished drawing his self-portrait and then went to see Grete Lawniczak to hear her opinion on the picture. Lawniczak praises the picture and wants to buy it from Franz. He then manages to convince Grete to let him paint her. Franz can also convince his grandfather and so the player has the choice of which figure Franz decides for.
Development and publication
The development of The Lion's Song began during the "Ludum Dare 30", a digital game-jam event, a meeting of game developers at which a video game is jointly developed within a short period of time. The game was developed during this event by the user "LeafThief" from August 22nd to 25th, 2014 within 72 hours. This early version of the game consisted of only part of the story (the later first episode) and could be downloaded for free from the Ludum Dare website. As the game during the event was well received and even as the best game of the categories "Mood" ( Engl . For "mood") and "Graphics" (Engl. For " Graphic Award"), the developer "LeafThief" decided the game the Vienna he development studio to present Mi'pu'mi Games where he worked full time. They agreed to develop and publish the game as a commercial game.
In November 2015, the game's Steam Greenlight campaign started , in which users of the Steam distribution platform were allowed to vote on whether the game could be distributed via Steam. The campaign was successful within 10 days and the first episode of the game was released on July 7, 2016 on Steam for Windows . The second episode of the game was released on November 21, 2016, while the third episode was also released on Steam on March 16, 2017. Simultaneously with the release of the fourth episode for Windows on July 13, 2017, all four episodes of the game were also released for Apple's macOS operating system . At the same time, the game was also released as a single app containing all four episodes for iOS and Android .
On June 27, 2018, Mi'pu'mi Games announced that all four episodes of The Lion's Song will be implemented for the Nintendo Switch . The game was released on July 10, 2018 in the Nintendo Switch eShop .
reception
Ratings
| German-speaking area | ||
|---|---|---|
| publication | Rating | system |
| GameStar | 83% | Pc |
| Gamers.at | 4.2 / 5 | Pc |
| ntower | 7/10 | Switch |
| International space | ||
| nintendolife | 8/10 | Switch |
| Destructoid | 8.5 / 10 | Switch |
| GameCritics | 8/10 | Pc |
| Meta-ratings | ||
| GameRankings | 79.57% | Pc |
| Metacritic | 81% | Switch |
The Lion's Song was received positively by the majority of the critics. The Nintendo Switch version of the game achieved an average rating of 81% on the aggregation website Metacritic . The PC version of the game achieved an aggregate rating of 79.57% on the GameRankings website .
Manuel Fritsch from GameStar magazine praised The Lion's Song for spending a lot of time on the characters' feelings, fears and inner life. This happens through internal monologues and conversations with other characters. He praised the game for the successful “visualization of the creative creative and thought processes” of the protagonists. The fact that the player is actively involved in the creative process creates great immersion . The pixelated " sepia look" makes the game look appropriate to the era of the early 20th century. However, Fritsch criticized the lack of setting "with the unmistakable [Viennese] linguistic sound ".
Dennis Meppiel from the online magazine ntower praised the visualization of the characters' way of thinking: As an example, he cites the flaring up of character traits that take place in conversations between the painter Franz and the characters who model him. Meppiel also praised the presentation of the game: the graphics reflect the style of the era well, and the excellent soundtrack "also accentuates the background music very well". Meppiel criticized, however, that "the influence of the key moments in The Lion's Song is only very small": The decisions that the player makes would only have a minimal effect on the plot. He also criticized "the mostly very long text passages and the lack of puzzles".
Awards
| Award ceremony | category | result | Award date |
|---|---|---|---|
| German Developer Award 2016 | Best indie game | Won | 7th Dec 2016 |
| Best story | Nominated | 7th Dec 2017 | |
| futurezone Award 2016 | game of the year | Won | Nov 10, 2016 |
Web links
- Official site of The Lion's Song (English)
- The Lion's Song at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The Lion's Song Devblog , In: Tumblr .com ; accessed on August 14, 2019.
- ↑ Steven Watson, Jack Allin: The Lion's Song , In: AdventureGamers.com ; dated October 9, 2018, accessed on November 18, 2019.
- ↑ a b Gavin Lane: The Lion's Song Review (Switch eShop) , In: nintendolife.com ; dated July 10, 2018, accessed on September 8, 2019.
- ↑ The Lion's Song , In: LudumDare.com ; dated August 25, 2014, accessed on August 14, 2019.
- ^ The Lion's Song , In: Steam community.com ; dated July 29, 2015, accessed on August 14, 2019.
- ↑ Mipumi Games GmbH: The Lion's Song: Episode 1 - Silence Launch Trailer on YouTube , July 7, 2016, accessed on August 14, 2019 (release trailer of July 7, 2016).
- ↑ Paúl Ordóñez: The Lion's Song Episode 2 is Available Now , In: GamingInstincts.com ; dated November 21, 2016, accessed on August 18, 2019.
- ↑ Stefan Hohenwarter: The Lion's Song Episode 3 - Derivation out now (+ launch trailer) , In: BeyondPixels.de ; dated March 17, 2017, retrieved on August 18, 2019.
- ↑ Gorgeous Adventure Game 'The Lion's Song' Final Episode and Mobile Release Coming July 13th , In: GameXFlash.net ; dated July 4, 2017, accessed on August 18, 2019.
- ↑ Critically-Acclaimed The Lion's Song Coming To Nintendo Switch July 10th , In: MyNintendoNews.com ; dated June 27, 2018, accessed on August 18, 2019.
- ↑ a b Manuel Fritsch: The Lion's Song in the test - Viennese stroke of genius , In: GameStar .de ; dated July 13, 2017, accessed September 8, 2019.
- ^ Roland Posch: The Lion's Song in the short test , In: Gamers.at ; dated July 13, 2017, accessed September 8, 2019.
- ↑ Dennis Meppiel: When artists reach their limits , In: ntower.de ; dated August 20, 2018, accessed September 8, 2019.
- ↑ Peter Glagowski: Review: The Lion's Song , In: Destructoid .com ; dated July 22, 2018, accessed September 8, 2019.
- ↑ Josh Tolentino: The Lion's Song (Switch) Review: Viennese Rhapsody , In: GameCritics.com ; dated September 19, 2018, accessed on September 8, 2019.
- ↑ a b The Lion's Song , In: GameRankings .com ; accessed on October 7, 2019 (English).
- ↑ a b The Lion's Song Switch , In: Metacritic .com ; accessed on September 8, 2019.
- ↑ Luis Kümmeler: German Developer Award 2016: The winners at a glance , In: PCGames.de ; dated December 8, 2016, accessed November 26, 2019.
- ^ Michael Bonke: German Developer Award: The Nominated Games , In: PCGames.de ; dated November 3, 2016, accessed November 26, 2019.
- ↑ "The Lion's Song" is Austria's Game of the Year , In: futurezone.at ; dated November 10, 2016, accessed November 26, 2019.