I can’t remember if I have ever played a game based on a children’s book. Even film adaptations of beloved novels are often criticized by fans for not translating the source material correctly for the big screen. But what if you could literally become the protagonist? Would you fall head over heels for a girl with an almost creepy obsession with birds, or would the story just fall flat?
Book Club
May I ask you a difficult question? Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Don’t just think about your current partner; think back further than your adult (or teenage) life. Think back to the first time you had that strange feeling that you would later come to recognise as love. Remember how awkward it was with these unknown feelings? The unease of not being able to express yourself or talk to this person? Do you remember the childhood memories of primary school or school holidays that come with it? Great! You have now discovered the core concept behind Hyper Liminal Games’ The Day I Became a Bird. It’s a hand-drawn narrative adventure game based on the book of the same name by Ingrid Chabbert.
It’s the first day of the new school year, and Frank is preparing to start a new year of learning. After feeding his dog and grabbing his trusty football, he heads out. When he crashes his bike in the park, he hears singing. But who is this person with such a beautiful voice? It’s none other than Sylvia, a girl from his class, who is serenading the birds in the park. Frank immediately falls in love. He can’t stop thinking about her, but she doesn’t notice him. The only thing she seems to care about in this world is birds. Big or small, colourful or grey, it doesn’t matter to her. She likes drawing them, sculpting them, and even wearing them; everything she does is bird-themed. So what does Frank decide to do? For the love of his life, he is prepared to take the next logical step. Become a bird himself…
From book to game
But this must make you wonder: what is a book-based game like? Well, I would say it’s fairly cosy. Due to the linear nature of the story, The Day I Became a Bird is divided into different days. You take control of Frank and complete his daily tasks by performing specific actions, such as turning the joystick of your controller in a certain direction or pressing the A button for a set amount of time. These tasks are fairly simple and advance the plot. There are required tasks indicated on a to-do list, but if you take the time to explore your environment, you will also find optional activities. These include dancing to music on the radio and stacking books, for example, things a child would do on a normal day. These side tasks are rewarded. They give you feathers, which are this game’s collectibles. Collecting them all is mostly an incentive to satisfy your inner trophy runner. However, it isn’t required to enjoy yourself.
At certain points in the game, exploration is interrupted by a tile puzzle. Upon completion. You receive a couple of hand-drawn storybook pages that advance the plot. These are mostly used to shift between days and locations, and they aren’t that difficult to complete. For me, though, they were the most charming moments of the game, giving me time to relax and reflect on the previous scene while enjoying the beautiful graphics. The gameplay isn’t too challenging, and I never felt that I needed to make a major effort to ‘win’, which kept the focus on the most important aspect of the game: the story.
Playable Picture Book
Before concluding my review of this fascinating book-to-game concept, I couldn’t help but read the source material. The whole book is available to read for free on archive.org, so it wasn’t hard to track a copy down. As it’s a graphic novel for children, it took me no more than fifteen minutes to read the whole book, but at least now I feel I can truly speak about the transition itself.
As you would expect. There are many sequences in the game that aren’t in the 50-page-long children’s book. Naturally, because otherwise the game would also be over far too quickly, and the emotion of the story would be lost. You spend more time with Frank, obsessing about Sylvia and becoming attached to the characters. The construction of the bird costume is now depicted in a longer sequence. In a poor adaptation, this would have felt like filler, but that wasn’t the case here.
The art style has also undergone a few alterations. The most noticeable change is the addition of 3D to fit more into three-dimensional environments. However, there are also nods to the source material, such as the pencil art style used for some of the edges of the overworld and objects in the environment. I couldn’t find anywhere online whether Ingrid Chabbert herself had any involvement in creating the game, but it seems the team at least received advice from her to ensure the project was both original and faithful to the source material.
A fun thing I discovered further in the process of writing this review is that there is actually a step in between the book and the game. Passion Interactive, the subsidiary studio behind this release, has already made a short film about the book in 2023. All my earlier comments still stand, and there are also differences between this version of the story and the other two. The film is included in the bonus material of the game, and it’s also worth watching.
Ultimately, both the game and the book offer different ways to experience a heartwarming story about love and growing up, and Hyper Liminal Games has done a fantastic job of translating the source material into an interactive medium. The game might not be too challenging, but it puts the story at the forefront as a narrative experience, allowing it to shine as brightly as it does in paper form. I have already tracked down a second-hand copy of the graphic novel to add to my bookshelf at home and to read as a bedtime story to my sons. When they are older, they will undoubtedly love playing through it themselves.
Conclusion
The Day I Became a Bird is a wonderful adaptation of a delightful children’s graphic novel. The gameplay isn’t challenging, but it perfectly supports the concept of putting the story front and centre. The additional story elements that extend the gameplay also deepen the player’s connection with the story; they don’t feel like filler. I didn’t expect that a book could be adapted into a game with so much care for the original text while still creating something new. This is even true when the art style is changed to something more befitting of a game.
