Anyone creative, or does creative things as a living, knows that at some point, inspiration just…stops. The harder you try to get inspired or to restart your creativity, the farther the goal gets. Depending on the art, you may have to confront trauma. That’s what you’ll have to do in Conner Rush’s and FYRE Games’ Project Songbird.
Project Songbird follows Dakota, a successful recording artist who’s been struggling to come up with new songs as demands from her manager and record label pile up. To jumpstart her creativity, she’s sent to a cabin in the woods where her personal demons begin to manifest.
Now, onto the game itself! The controls for Project Songbird are easy to master, as they’re in the usual First-Person style. Thankfully, there are moments where prompts come up as a tutorial, but after a few minutes of starting the game, you figure out most of the controls.
For a game that’s heavy on the narrative surrounding music, the sound mixing is not good. In most (if not all) games, you’ll have volume controls for music, sound, dialogue, and master volume. In this game, there’s just master volume, so the game’s pretty quiet, which is a shame because the soundtrack and voice acting are good. Speaking of the soundtrack, you can listen to records in the game from actual indie recording artists, so if hipsterish type of music is not your thing, you may not like this.
The game’s art and graphics are some of the best I’ve seen in an indie game for a while now. The game looks like it’s on an 8mm film roll. This may be hard for some, but luckily, it didn’t bother me. The best way to play the game (as it’s suggested at the start) is to play it in a wide-screen format. This was a first for me, and I’ll admit, it was interesting.
Gameplay-wise, the game combines walking simulation with First-Person horror with stealth mechanics and puzzle-solving. There is combat in the game, and crafting mechanics, but the crafting seemed bugged. There are some decent scares in the game, but don’t expect the game to get downright horrifying right off the bat.
Overall. I was impressed with Project Songbird and the story it told, as heartbreaking as it was. The art, gameplay, and voice acting are good, but the bugged crafting and slow start (and possibly the soundtrack) may put off some. With that said, to each their own, this was what I call a “one-and-done” kind of game, that once you play it, you’ll probably not go back to it, but it’s still a decent experience. On my scale of 1-10, Project Songbird is an 8/10
Project Songbird is out now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
