Swan Song Review
Coming from Business Goose Studios, Swan Song is a cosy puzzle game with a heartfelt and melancholic story about family illness and grief. The entire game takes place from a fixed perspective, overlooking a music box.
You play as Edith as she inserts the key crank into the music box built by her father, which unlock and opens the magic box. This begins a three hour experience of evolving puzzles.
At the beginning, Swan Song's puzzles are quite simplistic. The entire aim is to get your swan figurine that sits on the left side of the open music box to the other side. You're basically it's guide. These small tiles the swan must traverse are represented on the four colour coded lines on the music scale on the lower part of the box. Once you turn the key, the swan begins to move in the direction it faces. As it moves, a gold pointer moves above the scale, over eight logos that alternate between a quaver on a row where you can place notes to move specific tiles, and a swan, which represents when the swan will move.
Tiles are marked blue, green, pink or yellow, unless you change the colours in the accessibility options. It's up to you to place the notes in music box's draw in the right position on the music scale. So, if the swan needs to rotate direction on a rotatable tile in the first row, you look at the colour of the tile and place the note in the aligning row and colour on the music scale. You combine this to activate all necessary tiles and escort the swan to the end, and then, a short melody will play.
Between certain puzzles, the music box will close and reopen to reveal personal items, letters or cassette tapes. Hospital paraphernalia like inpatient wristbands, a gifted teddy bear, and medicine bottles carry an emotional weight. Instantly reminding me of my experiences on hospital wards. How in a strange way, things like the perpetual noise of medical equipment becomes as normal as hearing the wind blow.
Although, it's the narrated letters and audio drama style recorded conversations that home in on the challenges the family of three endure. The mother doesn't just face a terminal illness, she's haunted by the reality of never watching her daughter grow. The father drowns in the prospect of losing his soulmate and raising his daughter alone. Whereas, the daughter tries desperately to connect with her mother through their shared love of music. Swan Song is a simple but powerful story that will resonate with a lot of people. Yet, I thought some of the dialogue lacked the subtlety needed to keep the emotions nuanced. But the characterisation is strong and helps push past any noticeable narrative flaws.
But I did appreciate how these narrative snapshots felt grounded, to the extent that certain scenes felt wrong to listen to something so personal. The small cast are what make the narrative work. With what little material there is, they do a good job of endearing you to their characters and their plight. Whilst many scenes aren't overly expressive, they feel realistic enough that you consider them happening to you.
A melancholic but peaceful score helps maintain Swan Song's themes from beginning to end. It zones you in on the puzzles, whilst still absorbing the gravity of the story. The cohesion of these creative elements allows you to take in the puzzles and story at your own pace.
Business Goose Studios also bolsters this approach in the visual presentation - a simple but sleek choice to use minimalist backgrounds to home in on the puzzle box. The backgrounds change in each of the nine chapters, as sun rays shine down and specks of dust dance through the air. Also, the music box isn't overly detailed, but it's readable, and the swan's movement and the inner workings of the music box are nicely animated.
Yet Swan Song's main appeal is the puzzles. Whilst the game starts simple enough, it follows the example of the very best puzzle games by on-boarding the first stages, and then, continuously iterating and adding new puzzle mechanics. Every chapter building on the last.
The initial chapter introduces the basic movement of the swan. Then, different types of notes are slowly introduced: long notes move two platforms at a time, tall notes simultaneously control two different coloured platforms, wide and tall notes do a combination of both, and others can delay movement. But it isn't just note variety that complicates things. Tiles themselves add new gameplay elements: some rotate your swan, others move horizontally and vertically, some hold a hunter figurine that can shoot you from your platform and another tile can shatter.
Although Business Goose Studios keeps adding new mechanics, it wouldn't be unexpected to think the play space limits the complexity of puzzles. Despite this, the developers intelligently maximise the space and add an extra layer of difficulty by introducing a key that needs to be turned twice. Doubling the music scale, forcing you to figure out how a repeating scale can solve a puzzle. Culminating in late game brainteasers that use all of the puzzle mechanics in unison.
From the mid point onwards, other notes are introduced as you begin to learn more about the characters and their connection to music. As you're given more notes to place on the scale, each one has different nodes it can attach to, and different abilities, like being able to stun a segment in place and many more. And when you've finished the game, there's a few secrets to find for those that want to find them.
Personally, I would've liked additional audio drama sequences as the scenes with multiple character were the most impactful parts when the writing hit. But at around 3 or so hours long, the developers have meticulously evolved one puzzle type to its limit, so that it never feel the same. These tightly paced puzzles work really well and compliment the gradual pace of the story. Although, I would've liked a second puzzle style to mix things up, the puzzle design is very impressive and I hope the developers continue to use what they've learned in future projects.
Swan Song is a simple but effective exploration of grief through the lens of a smartly designed puzzle game. It's clearly a personal story and passion project for the developers, and an easy game to pick up and play when you fancy a brainteaser. Or a game that's perfect to play through in one sitting. Although, I would've liked the narrative design to be a little sharper and an extra puzzle type to break up the pace, Swan Song is still a tightly designed puzzle game that's worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre.
