The Girl of Glass: A Summer Bird's Tale

Recommended for fans of light point and click adventures, RPGs, and art. +Visuals/art style and music +Story depth +Interesting mash-up of point/click and turn-based battles +Alternating realism/fantasy +Character development -Some awkward controls -Movement is very slow -Very limited options -Some obscure puzzles -Politics is heavy-handed

Thats a hard pass. The first chapter was promising as it reminded me of old quest games with mixing point and click adventure and actual combat (turn based) but further it goes it starts to break down into confused mess of dialogues, absurdist events and tedious, quite RNG heavy combat. Also should note that it feels like story was written by a teen who just discovered psychology books and decided to mesh all its points into one eclectic maieutics.

I want to play this game, and it seems like the plot and narrative are promising, but the combat system is achingly slow and tedious with the worst repetitive dialogue.

- Nice enough to play, rating 82/100

[u] Before you do anything:[/u] [i] If you decided to purchase this game please before entering the turn-based battle section of the game, set it on easy mode, trust me it will make life a lot easier, pun intended. [/i] Having played a lot of points and click adventure games as well as a fair bit of turn-base combat games purchasing this game was a no-brainer for me even after reading some of the negative and agreeing with a lot of them I have a soft spot for it. Maybe it’s the ending I got or the beautiful blend of 3D and 2D art style or even the accent, I don’t know, despite the flaws, I really enjoy this game. [h1] Positive (First-half-ish of the game):[/h1] So let's go to the beginning, the point-and-click section where we play as Kristal who is.... well a fragile crystal, adopted by the traveling circus and working with them as a janitor because she is too.....breakable to do anything else. This portion of this game was properly the sweetest part of the game thanks to your standard, easy enough, point-and-click puzzles, peaceful soundtracks along with beautifully painted backgrounds that suited well with a 3D render of Kristal. Oh, and before I forget, the characters were much more compelling and complex than I had envisioned, depending on if you choose to ignore or spend time with them to learn about their backstory, which was nice to give players the agency to explore what they want. Lastly, I adore the narration, and colourful illustrations and the title screen are used to convey this game is a children's storybook, sharing many similarities to stories like Cinderella thinking at the top of my head, [spoiler] like how Kristal is doing manual labour and being mistreated by her boss and coworker.[/spoiler]. I could even see this being adapted into a 2D with some 3D movie if Disney would stop doing remakes. So, not a bad start, even if the point-and-click section throughout the game had gotten easy and shorter, I still highly enjoy it I like anything circus theme as I was obsessive about that type of theme back then. If this game was divided into just being a point-and-click adventure in the circus, for a smaller price, I think more people would appreciate it a lot than this version. [h1] Negative (Second-half-ish of the game):[/h1] Now to the nitty gritty, the turn-based battle system has a few issues, firstly being, not being newer player-friendly, even though it does a decent job talking you through its mechanic, as soon as elemental strength and weaknesses are introduced and field ability gets more complex. Why? because the game doesn't explain what they all do or keep track of the effect they're having and there's a lot to keep track of, even for me that I have to write a whole list, like, ‘clown weak against fire’ or ‘water field- deal less damage’ etc, etc, not that I mind this type of game design, but in this case, it is targeted towards 2 different audiences it should had designed much more simply rather than being too much of one game. So that's wouldn’t recommend this game to those new to RPGs or just fans of point-and-click adventure games, if they need to go through this part of the game The other problems were the antagonist, mainly their monologues being cliches and may I say ‘cringy’, and we have to endure bossfight after bossfight which hurt the progression, especially when they are at a certain HP they pause battle to explain why they are evil. God help you if you need to restart it and listen to them speak over again. All these problems occur after the tone just shifts from a sweet, circus fantasy land into an edgy apocalypse alternative world, not that I have a problem with it, I applaud the idea, but it was poor execution of pacing and the dialogue as well as the RPG mechanic balance that hold this game back. [h1] Conclusion:[/h1] It was a ballsy move for the developer to mix 2 different types of games together, I could see a world where this will work, in this case, it just needed more time to be marinated for a lot longer. But, for what I got to play I love what this The Girl of Glass was trying to accomplish and the metaphorical message towards the end in this wonderful journey.

This was a perfect game for me, I really enjoyed the mix of point-and-click, visual novel, and turn-based combat. That last one was a bit tough to figure out, but once you get started it's easy to pick up. This is a game with a lot of deep cuts and social commentary - it's a game that makes you think. All-in-all, I would recommend because I personally enjoyed this game, and I think there's something here for everyone to relate to.

Really wanted to like this and what it was going for but the mix of fairy tale and metaphor just... doesn't work for me. Segments that are supposed to represent big thematic successes and wins for the heroes really just come down to dream sequences. Being shunted off to those segments when I'm trying to enjoy the story really bugs me. It makes it hard to parse how much of the information we receive is real or just Kristal's perception of these people. Beyond that, here's something beyond stupid that really broke it for me. The game is set in broad strokes 1950s Europe. Kristal has been confined to the circus her whole life. If you observe a poster, she can off-hand mention she's never seen a movie before. Five minutes after learning that second fact, Kristal can mock the clown for making a Ratatouie joke. Just completely tonally and textually inconsistent in three different ways. And that's a really petty thing to complain about but... I dunno! It all just adds up to little frustrations where I can't take the metaphor sections seriously when even the reality sections seem inconsistent.

Kinda loved this one, especially the ending! Incredibly beautiful backgrounds and animation. Makes me a little sad so much of the genre is stuck in the low res styles of the past. Story and characters are fantastic, puzzles are solid and well-thought out, never so challenging than I got stuck (which is good, because the game is criminally under-documented.) If there are flaws, it's that the turn-based combat sections sometimes overstay their welcome, and the system of elemental strengths and weaknesses meant to be core to those battles is quite obtuse. There's too many elements and in many cases it is not even obvious which elements are being used by which characters, let alone which is weak to the other. But this is all minor. Anyway, yes. Loved it! Also I appear to be the only person in the world to have gotten the coexist ending. So go me apparently!

one of many indie gem's. to those who want a good story

I bought the game without knowing much about it, and I expected it to be a short but sweet game, and thought I was close to finishing after chapter one. I was pleasantly surprised by the advancements in the story and characters from that point on and I discovered that there was much more to the gameplay aswell. The chapters alternate between a point and click puzzle game and a turn-based strategy game. The dialogues can be a bit long at times, but are worth the read. They include a lot of funny remarks, but also touch on many controversial but topical subjects, which I found great. It took me between 8 and 10 hours to complete on my first play-through. I recommend this game if you enjoy laid-back games with a good story.