Ten years ago, French author, Ingrid Chabbert, and her illustrating partner, Guridi, released a charming and seemingly really well liked kids book called The Day I Became a Bird. Then, in 2023, an animated short film that told the same story came out. Fast forward to this spring, and there’s now a video game based on the cute narrative, and it’s available for PC, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5.
The Day I Became a Bird centres upon a young boy named Frank, who lives in an apartment building, has a beloved pet dog and rides his bicycle to school every day. On one such school day, he rides past a girl who’s standing under a tree and interacting with birds. From this point on, Frank becomes fascinated by this new girl and her love of the winged creatures. All she seems to do is watch birds with binoculars, sing to them, and draw them, either on paper or on the pavement outside the classroom.
Frank tries to get the girl’s attention, but it doesn’t work out. His friends make fun of him, they ruin the picture he draws, and he crashes his bike. However, since he’s unable to stop thinking about this classmate, who he’s developed a crush on, he decides to go big or go home. This results in an idea to build a bird costume out of things found in nature.
This tale seems to work really well in print, and also fits short form animation really well. How does it translate to gaming, though? Our answer to that question is pretty well.
The video game version of The Day I Became a Bird begins as Frank wakes up for school. We wake him up using the controller, help him feed his dog a piece of toast, pet the doggy, then eventually ride his bike to school. Along the way, we can pick up numerous golden feathers, which act as the game’s collectibles.
This story is told over the course of four interactive days, each of which have different scenes. You’ll spend time in the courtyard outside of the apartment building, where you can help your dog, kick a soccer ball, play in leaves and more, and will also spend time in class and during a school outing. The latter takes place in a large park, where you must pull branches out of bushes, find clothes hangers, help friends and collect leaves.
I do feel that the short film provides more narrative depth, but think that the developers did a good job of conveying most of the story through the game.
This is a rather basic and short experience, which features simplistic controls that involve pushing the left joystick up or down, rotating it in different directions, and the like. There are also times where you’ll hold X or have to press it at the right time, as a cursor moves within a metre. There’s little that’s either challenging or advanced herein.
There are also times where players must ride Frank’s bike or (eventually) try to fly, in dream space. This is handled by guiding the bike or bird by moving the left joystick. The goal is to avoid obstacles, and go through approximately 20 rings. There are also around ten feathers to find in each segment, although you’ll miss most of them if you focus on the rings.
Moving on, it’s important to note that there are other mini games that are part of this 45-60 minute interactive and animated story. They involve using the stick and a button to cut paper or draw a bird, as well as a number of puzzles that must be completed. These puzzles make up drawings of birds, pictures of characters or something that Frank has dreamed about his new classmate/crush. You’ll be provided with a certain amount of pieces already in place, and will have to fit the remaining ones in properly. This is the most challenging part of this game, because you’ll have to pay attention and rotate pieces to get them to fit. I’m not great at puzzles, so the more complex ones took me a bit longer than I’d like to admit. I’m great at word searches though!
You could say that the puzzles pad the game’s length, and I wouldn’t argue. However, this is a brief and pretty basic game to begin with, and — although the puzzles do become repetitive and overused — they do add some variety to the experience.
If you’ve seen the short, animated, movie based on this book then you’ll know what to expect from the visuals and audio. However, it’s likely that you’re like me and hadn’t. I don’t have kids or any nieces or nephews, so I’d never even heard of the book until I heard about the game. Regardless, The Day I Became a Bird features a unique, almost water coloured, art style. The children are all stylized, and many of them have something to say through dialogue bubbles. The bird costume resembles the one found in the book, but that seems to be in black and white, and features a bit of a different art style. This game definitely resembles the animated short though, and I can state that given that I watched it after finishing the game. It’s packaged in with it, in the extras menu, which is nice. There was also a music thing there, and maybe artwork, but both were locked.
Regardless, it’s a very cute, whimsical, colourful and well made experience, which looks rather beautiful. The art style befits the subject matter very well, and things animate interestingly and fittingly. The sound, music and art style all work well together, to create the intended effect of a picture book or child’s bedtime story come to life.
The Day I Became a Bird is a simplistic game, at its core, but it’s a charming, beautiful and welcomed experience that provides further proof that gaming is an artful medium. Not all games need to be long, fast-paced, challenging or involved to be worthwhile, and some exist for other reasons. This is a good example, and it exists as a good way for parents to share this charming tale with their kids.
This review is based on the PlayStation 5 version of the game, which we were provided with.