Koira

Just taking a single look at Koira’s artwork should signal what you can expect. Like the best kind of cartoons, you’re in for a heartwarming—and at times heartbreaking—tale of companionship through adversity. Belgian developers Studio Tolima have taken the best from the world of cartoons and video games and combined them into a truly touching game that shines brightest when it decides to slow things down, as the bond between you and the puppy you’ve saved is brought to life in stunning, wordless fashion.

Saving the puppy is only the start of your adventure. You find it stuck in a hunter’s trap, immediately giving us a warning of the dangers that this enchanted forest holds for us. This forest is brought to life in a minimalist yet highly stylised fashion, with the use of only a few colours being a great choice. Not only does it drive home the wintery feel of the game, but it also allows the developers to use colour as a tool to guide you during your exploration.

Because that’s most of what you will do in Koira: explore. The goal of the game is, like most of its gameplay, pretty simple: to make it back to your cabin with your new pet in tow. Getting there is slightly more difficult though: the forest is full of poachers, whose presence is incredibly ominous, with dark clouds surrounding the areas where they are most active, and their visuals being rather spooky as well with detached hands and evil eyes.

Those eyes are vital to the storytelling as well. All characters look like black blots of ink, with only their eyes being truly expressive. That character design is easily one of the highlights, as it allows a game with no words to be told by feelings rather than thoughts. Whenever something happens, we are instantly transported into both your character’s and the dog’s emotions through the look in their eyes. It may seem like a pretty simple thing to do, but I have to applaud the game’s artists for making it work so brilliantly.

The other big storytelling aspect of the game is music. Both your own voice and that of your pup’s consist of music instead of words, and that choice is inspired. The basic understanding between human and pet is presented as the capacity to understand each other by mimicking the other’s speech patterns. This is especially powerful during the moments when your character gets angry with the hunters and loses themselves in that anger: all of a sudden, the music is gone from your voice, replaced by harsh noises. This scares your little companion, as the understanding between the two of you is gone; you are now just as threatening as other things and beings within the game.

That anger plays a big part in the game’s story, and sadly, it’s one part of the game that I struggled with. The game tries to simplify a lot of elements into the good and bad categories, which is a good thing, as it opens the concepts it presents to a wider audience, as younger players will have a clear idea of what’s going on too. But getting angry is treated as a very bad thing. Again, it’s easy to understand why. However, to me at least, there is some nuance missing. 

These anger issues only flare up whenever you, your dog, or another animal is in danger from the hunters, but sadly, it’s the only tool at our disposal to be able to escape or try to fight back. In many instances within the game’s 4-hour story, it spares you from being captured, or worse. It could basically be seen as a necessary evil, yet when the danger is gone and you only notice your dog being scared of you, it really hits home that you did ‘a bad thing’. It would’ve worked better if there were multiple solutions to these situations, where getting angry was the easier pick, and the game would show you how that might have been the wrong choice. But now, it feels like being punished for doing whatever was necessary for survival.

Maybe that’s the bigger point behind Koira, though. How, when we’re dealing with traumatising matters, we might do things we’re not proud of. And how it’s important to then make sure that we snap out of it and make things right for those closest to us. In any case, this theme of anger leads to one of the game’s most cathartic moments, which is an absolute joy, but which I can’t go into here without spoiling some of the endgame.

It’s a good thing that moment is there though, because at times I got annoyed with the base gameplay and story. Some story beats are just repeated a little too often to be enjoyable, and its best moments easily come from the quieter times in the game. Playing fetch with your dog, collecting pieces of statues and singing to them, or pointing out clouds that look like particular shapes. It’s in these moments where the bond between you and your dog shines brightest, and it’s that connection that will pull on your heartstrings the most.

Koira doesn’t do too many things you haven’t seen in games before. The puzzles are pretty easy if you’ve played any other game, and even some of the designs, like those of the statues in the forest, take inspiration from other games. The story isn’t particularly new either, but fortunately, the way it’s told through the eyes of you and your dog works incredibly well.

It’s the game’s core duo that will make you want to push through the more annoying parts of the game, like the basic stealth puzzles. The game is beautifully cinematic, with some fantastic shots used, and the combination of visuals and music is the second-best part of the game, which is only behind the aforementioned human-dog connection. It’s easy to understand why a company like Don’t Nod wanted to publish this one. And I’m just very proud to see a game by people from my own country shine so brightly.