30 Birds

Stepping into 30 Birds feels like reopening a childhood illustrated book – the one where I would get lost for hours colouring Persian art, with its flattened views and bright colours whispering of distant bazaars and mystical birds. Much like One Thousand and One Nights first ignited my love for Persian tales, 30 Birds rekindles that wonder, transforming Attar of Nishapur’s 12th-century Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds into a vibrant, interactive tapestry where every lantern rotation feels like turning a page in Scheherazade’s manuscript. As Zig, the endearingly clumsy detective tasked with rescuing the goddess Simurgh from a mad scientist, I found myself not just solving puzzles but retracing the footsteps of my younger self – where fantasy wasn’t escapism but a language of the soul.

From the outset, the traversal in 30 Birds seduced me with its sense of magic and possibility. Each lantern is its own world, spinning and unfolding as Zig explores.  Every district – rendered in rich, bright colours – feels both ancient and alive. The game works by guiding Zig across the flat, 2D surfaces of ornate lanterns, but as she reaches the edge of a district, the whole lantern rotates, revealing a new 2D plane on the other side of the 3D shape. This clever system means that movement is never just left or right; it’s about anticipating how the city will twist and open and how each face connects to hidden alleys, bustling markets, or secret rooftop gardens. 

Sometimes you’ll hop onto a tram that glides impossibly through the air between lanterns or, later, take control of a magic carpet, swooping between floating areas in a way that feels both liberating and scary. The interplay of 2D exploration – side-scrolling, talking to locals, solving puzzles – and the sudden, almost magical rotation into a new perspective gives Lantern City a sense of layered mystery.

The city itself is a living collection of personalities and stories. The birds – wise-cracking Hoop, merchant budgies, and mysterious djinns – aren’t just quest-givers but pieces of a larger, broken whole. Each meeting is a small drama, a comedy, or a quiet moment. The humour is clever, sometimes silly, but always touched with a sense that something important is at stake. The writing sparkles with wit, yet beneath the laughter there’s always a note of longing, a sense that the city itself might fall apart.

While the Persian and Middle Eastern influences are visually stunning, they remain disappointingly shallow. This isn’t a deep retelling of The Conference of the Birds – it simply borrows the concept of 30 Birds and the goddess Simurgh without exploring the rich mythology behind them. The cultural elements feel more like decoration than meaningful storytelling, which may disappoint players expecting deeper cultural exploration.

Puzzles and mini-games serve less as obstacles and more as invitations to participate in the city’s rhythms. Turning dials, matching patterns, and drawing in art class – these are tactile, improvisational, and often playful, echoing the game’s central theme of finding beauty in imperfection. The menu system, cleverly disguised as Zig’s mobile phone, includes a fun mix of apps, messages, and digital doodles which integrate inventory management and quest tracking seamlessly into the game world. Yet the controls can be unresponsive, especially on PC with a keyboard and mouse, working better with a controller. 

The game’s atmosphere is nothing short of mesmerising. The art style, inspired by Persian miniatures and Ottoman manuscripts, is both lush and precise, every scene a riot of colour and detail. The city feels layered with history and myth, yet somehow immediate and alive. The music, when it appears, is a fusion of Middle Eastern melodies and modern ska rhythms, but much of the experience is marked by, I hope, a deliberate quiet – a silence that invites contemplation, as if the city itself is listening for the next story to be told. The developers’ inspirations are worn proudly on the game’s sleeve: Attar’s Conference of the Birds, One Thousand and One Nights, and even Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis are all echoed in the city’s labyrinthine structure, its humour, and its constant negotiation between tradition and modernity.

Yet, for all its beauty and ambition, 30 Birds is not without its shortcomings. The process of gathering birds, so magical at first, can become repetitive as narrative momentum slows and tasks begin to blur. There are stretches where the city’s enchantment dims, and discovery gives way to routine. The controls, while thematically resonant in their awkwardness, can at times frustrate – especially when the lack of clear instructions leaves you floundering in what should be moments of joyful exploration. The menu system, though artfully integrated into Zig’s phone, sometimes obscures essential information, leading to unnecessary backtracking or confusion.

The traversal system also has real problems. The lantern geometry can be confusing, as you’ll often get lost trying to find specific locations, even though there are only four main districts with four sides each. Hidden pathways and secret areas are poorly marked, making it frustrating when you can see collectibles but can’t figure out how to reach them. The game doesn’t always make it clear which areas are accessible, leading to unnecessary backtracking and confusion. These flaws are not fatal, but they do occasionally break the spell, reminding you that even the most lovingly crafted worlds are subject to the limits of their own design.

Despite these obstacles, 30 Birds maintains an underlying charm. The beauty of the city, the spark of its humour, and the constant sense of yearning keep pulling you forward, promising that the next lantern, the next meeting, will offer something new. The act of gathering the birds is both literal and symbolic – a meditation on building and maintaining community.

When the game reaches its climax, it transforms from a light-hearted adventure into something unexpectedly profound. The final choice – determining the fate of both the mad scientist and Lantern City itself – carries genuine weight because it refuses to present clear moral absolutes. This isn’t a binary good-versus-evil decision, but rather a meditation on justice, forgiveness, and the complex responsibility that comes with power over another’s destiny. The game’s earlier whimsy doesn’t disappear; instead, it deepens the impact of this moment by showing how even the most colourful, eccentric community must eventually grapple with serious questions about redemption and consequence.