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It's been a few years between the release of the demo and now, but on the strength of the 2 hours or so I have played to date, Common Colors is on a winner here.

This is a black-and-white point and click 2D animated adventure, tinged with Tim Burton looks and an Addams Family feel. It revolves around Prim, a young girl who has gone to live with her father after the death of her mother. Whereupon she learns that her father is Death himself and home is now the Underworld. Unhappy with her circumstances and her father's rules, her 16th birthday seems like the perfect time to embrace her emerging other-worldly powers and see what might become.

Self-described as creepy cute, it's an apt description. The visual style is engaging, the characters are spookily charming, and the sights and the sounds are a kooky joy. The eyeball on legs is also most splendid accomplice.

After an opening sequence, once you gain control of Prim you are confined to a single room. Needless to say, your first task is to get out. Once you do, it's not long before the available locations considerably open up. The more constrained start helps you settle in and also provides some tutorial moments.

The game is entirely point and click and you can save at will. Scenes might slide left and right, and exits are indicated. The space bar highlights hotspots (once you initiate it early on) and the mouse wheel brought up my inventory. Right click to examine, left click to use. It includes a diary which has a to do list and the capacity to access hints. You will acquire a fast travel map, and the puzzling to date has all been inventory based.

It can be all sorts of things, from tongue-in-cheek humour to poignant melancholy. I suspect there is a lot more of the latter to come.

I am enjoying it a lot.


Gardens put to bed. Time for more reading and gaming.