After a long week off I have come back and still don’t want to play games. I played the demo of this week’s game and I thought to myself, “damn, this is sad.” Sometimes games can be fun and tell a story that sometimes just needs to be told. This week I travel through a woman’s life and platform all over the kitchen a couple of times; this week is Blueberry.

Blueberry is a platformer from Mellow Games. That is it, there is nothing else about the game, maybe it’ll release on PC sometime.

Blueberry follows the story of a woman named Blueberry. The story takes you through her childhood memories all the way through to the “twilight” years. experience her giving attitude to her mother about her addiction to alcohol to Blueberry, in her teen years, rebelling against her mother for how their lives turned out. It is important to note that a majority of the demo was small moments that did not have much impact on the player’s attitude toward Blueberry and her upbringing but there were certain moments that felt so real that it hurt emotionally.

Platforming is the main mechanic in Blueberry. A majority of the time you travel to memory and some variation of the platforming objective is noted. For instance, there is a section where you have to climb the cupboards to get the cookies and eat the cookies and spoil your dinner. Precise jumping is important to be able to accomplish the tasks set forth by the game. Even traversing the overworld, on occasion, requires a significant amount of experience with platforming. None of the demo levels were difficult, honestly, they were really eye-opening.

Blueberry takes a very minimal approach to its art style. Characters are simply drawn, with little dots for the eyes. The environments resemble real locations within the mind of Blueberry but the overworld is incredibly abstract. It all fits together quite well.

I honestly don’t remember the music very much, so…… no comment.

Blueberry is an interesting take on mental health. In the demo, the player navigates Blueberry through some traumatic events: Not having enough money for food, alcoholism, depression, and even the issues that stem from separating parents. Hard truths are revealed by the game and do not underestimate them because they are truly something to behold. Overall the platforming so far is good enough but Blueberry can wobble in the air which makes platforming a little more difficult than it has to be. The minimalist art style is something that I enjoy, it fits the aesthetic of the game well enough.

I hope it comes out soon, I really enjoyed this demo.