Overview
Gris is a 2D platformer developed by Nomada Studio and published by Devolver Digital, released in December 2018. The game follows a young woman named Gris as she moves through a world fractured by grief, gaining new abilities that physically alter the environment around her. There's no combat, no death screen, no fail state. The entire experience is built around exploration, light puzzle-solving, and the gradual restoration of color to a world drained of it.
What makes Gris stand out immediately is its refusal to explain itself. There's no tutorial text beyond simple control icons, no spoken dialogue, no written story beats. The narrative is delivered entirely through animation, environmental design, and a score composed by Berlinist that shifts from sparse piano to full orchestral swell as the world opens up. It's a game that trusts the player to feel their way through.
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Gameplay and mechanics
Gris keeps its core loop deliberately gentle. Players guide Gris through side-scrolling environments, jumping across platforms, solving environmental puzzles, and collecting star-shaped motes of light that unlock new areas. The platforming never demands precision timing or punishes failure. What it does demand is attention.
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Key mechanics include:
- Stone form to break through floors and resist wind
- Double jump unlocked through story progression
- Swimming to navigate flooded areas
- A cloak ability that turns Gris into a projectile
- Singing to activate environmental objects
Each ability changes how you read the world. Levels that seemed like dead ends open up. Paths that looked decorative become traversable. The puzzle design is never obscure, but it rewards curiosity.
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Visual and audio design
The hand-painted art style, created by artist Conrad Roset, is the most immediately recognizable thing about Gris. Watercolor washes, ink-drawn architecture, and fluid character animation give the game a look that sits somewhere between an illustrated book and a feature-length animated film. Each chapter introduces a new color palette as Gris recovers emotionally, shifting from grey and white to deep blues, then to warm golds.
The Berlinist score is inseparable from the visual experience. The music responds to what's on screen without being intrusive, building and retreating in ways that feel organic rather than programmed. A few sequences tie movement directly to the soundtrack, making Gris feel briefly like a rhythm game before stepping back into pure platforming.
Impact and legacy
Gris holds a score above 80 on major review aggregators and earned multiple awards for art direction and audio in 2018 and 2019. It sits comfortably alongside games like Journey and Flower as a touchstone for the argument that games can function as emotional art without sacrificing interactivity. The PlayStation Store rating sits at 4.62 out of 5 from over 11,000 ratings, suggesting the game has continued to find new players well past its launch window.
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The game runs on PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, iOS, and Android, making it one of the more widely accessible entries in the atmospheric platformer genre. A single playthrough runs roughly 3 to 5 hours depending on how thoroughly you explore, with optional collectibles and a handful of skill-based hidden sequences for players who want more. It's a short game that leaves a long impression.