Do you ever sometimes wonder if the way you see the world is different from everyone else, because there may be a hint of truth to that thought, and in Bokura, there definitely is. Bokura is a 2 Player puzzle platformer game where you and your partner see the world in very different ways. If that interests you, this is one of those games where the less you know about it, the better the experience will be for you both.
While this game isn’t knowledge based unlocks, I want to spoil as little of the experience as possible. I found out about this game via a random YouTube suggestion from Ben Again, Bokura – The Game That Transcends Realities. I saw about the first minute, and stopped the video to go play it with Lilla. They liken the game to Portal 2 Co-op and We Were Here, when talking about the design ethos around co-op puzzle gameplay, and I have to fully agree with him. Bokura mixes both. You still interact with eachother in the same space and have to communicate plans like in Portal, but the actual resources you have to work with are different like in We Were Here.
Bokura is a pixel art puzzle game with a very pleasant soundtrack and a simultaniously superficial yet also deep story about a guy recollecting his memory of one winter with his friend. They got bored and wanted to go hike up the mountain to blow up a statue of the mayor with a bundle of fireworks. A simple whimsical premise that unfolds into a compelling narrative.
And if that description interests you, stop reading now, and go play Bokura.
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If you’re still here, you either aren’t convinced, or have no friends (I’m terribly sorry.)
When you first start Bokura, you’re met with a host button and a join button. It doesn’t really matter who hosts since you then get to choose whether you play as green or blue. Both characters play the same, but this decision does become important later and you probably will want to play through the game as both characters if you have it in you to do two go-arounds.
The first couple levels play out like a regular puzzle platformer. You can jump 1 tile high, and mantle onto walls 2 tiles tall. You can push boxes around to give yourself a boost or weigh down seasaws. You can climb chains, pass over weak bridges, and die if you fall 6 or more tiles at once. If either of you die, both of you are sent to the checkpoint. So far, so standard. And then you see a corpse.
A deer corpse at least.
Still enough to make both the characters queasy enough to pass out.
This is where the game plays it’s big trick: When you wake up, everything is different. Green wakes up as a duck next to his friend who has been transformed into a bear. But from Blue’s perspective both of them are robots. But not only are the characters changed, the whole world is different. Green is in a world of whimsy, green grass, animal people, wolves that try to eat you because you’re a duck, and from Lilla’s description, a lot of “fucked up gorey shit” later on. I didn’t get this though, my view of the world was cold and mechanical, the trees replaced with metal pillars, haybales with piles of springs and wires, and everyone being robots or machines, even the dogs.
And it’s clear from the get go that things are different, at least to us. It takes Green and Blue a small moment to catch on.
In the puzzles, things are different, what Blue sees as a moveable box might potentially be Green’s semisolid platform, Green’s bridge might be a giant pit in the ground for Blue. Blue’s consciousness transferring machine that lets Green teleport between 2 points in a level is Green’s giant pile of flesh. Some puzzles involve areas where only one of the characters is able to go, while another character has to help them navigate, or hold open doors or elevators, or just sit tight until a bridge is revealed.
At a few points in the story, the game will ask you to mute your mic. As we were in the same room, we were just sat quietly instead of narrating the story out loud to eachother. This is because in the story, you each go in different directions to say different things, and in the process learning a lot more about the characters you’re playing as, and the people around you. We’ve both kinda just silently agreed between us that the things we learned would go unsaid, since we are both gonna find out on our next go-around eventually. I learned a lot of important lore. Lilla saw a lot of fucked up shit. You’d think it would be the opposite since she was in happy go lucky animal world, and I was wondering the metallic wasteland, but thinking back, all the aesthetic choices this game makes sense.
I’ve not played through Green’s route, nor has Lilla Blue’s, but we’re going to be rectifying that shortly because to be completely honest, I want to see whatever the fuck it was that Lilla had to go through!
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1801110 £4.64
Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/BOKURA-2429493.html £4.64
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.kodansha.bokura £3.89
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