Gris
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and iOS
Genres: Adventure, Narrative and Platform
Released: October 2019. Added to this library 6 months ago, last updated 4 weeks ago.
Overview
Gris is a platform game where you guide a young girl through a crumbling world. Through beautiful metaphoric landscapes and soaring music, the game touches on emotions of loss and longing but doesn’t resolve to a firm narrative. Although not hugely varied, its commitment to its aesthetic and painterly development of visuals creates an evocative and meditative game that encapsulates both sadness and hope.
Your character Gris, is a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life. Her journey through sorrow is manifested in her dress, which grants new abilities to better navigate her faded reality. As the story unfolds, Gris will grow emotionally and see her world in a different way, revealing new paths to explore using her new abilities.
This game is good if you want to step up and help out, harm no living thing, learn something playing a properly great game, play games without in-app purchases, reconsider your body or engage your emotions.
Commitment
Costs
This game is free with Xbox Game Pass.
Ratings
This game has been rated ESRB EVERYONE.
Accessibility
System settings: Android has accessibility settings including ways to navigate and interact, although not all games support this. Nintendo Switch has some built-in features, including a lockable zoom, that can be used on all games. Windows has extensive accessibility features. Some, like colour correction, work with games. Lots of accessibility software can be used with PC games, from voice recognition to input device emulators. PlayStation 4 has a range of accessibility settings. Some are system only, some work in games (invert colours and button mapping). iOS has a very extensive suite of accessibility settings including ways to navigate with voice and comprehensive screen reading, though most of the features don't work with games... read more.
Similar Games
The following games address a similar topic or offer a similar way to play. They are good options to play after Gris, and also offer a range of alternatives for different age ratings.
Monument Valley (Series)
Duration: Between 2 hours and 3 and a half hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost. In-game purchases.
Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2 are puzzle mazes made from optical illusions. You interact with each level to change the pathway and get your character to the exit. Its striking, calm visual theme is used to build atmosphere and slowly reveal a...
Florence
Genres: Narrative
Duration: Between 1 hour and 2 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
This is a little puzzle game that tells the story of a relationship, following the usual stages of loneliness, meeting, dating, falling for and moving in with another person. At first, the puzzle interactions seem trivial and the game doesn’t change...
Alto’s Adventure (Series)
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC and iOS
Genres: Action, Platform and Racing
Duration: Between 1 minute and 20 minutes to play a round.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Descend beautiful mountains, dunes and canyons on a snowboarding journey full of serenity and secrets. All you have to worry about is tapping to jump to avoid chasms, rockfall and other hazards. It’s simple and moreish due to the stunning landscapes...
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Action, Platform and Puzzle
Duration: Between 15 hours and 22 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Free-to-start. In-game purchases.
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a side-on running and jumping game starring the characters from the 3D platform game Yooka-Laylee. You control Yooka, a male chameleon, and Laylee, a female bat and take on a level...
Super Mario Galaxy (Series)
Platforms: Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Wii U
Genres: Action, Adventure, Platform and Simulation
Duration: Between 16 hours and 26 hours to complete.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Mario Galaxy is a different style of running, jumping and exploration game. It takes the Mario character to 100s of different planet shaped levels adding more realistic physics to the platform Ing play. Each world, or collection of worlds is different...
Spiritfarer
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Action, Adventure, Narrative, Open World, Platform and Simulation
Duration: Between 28 hours and 30 hours to complete.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Spiritfarer is a boat building exploration game. Unusually though, you play Stella, ferry master to the deceased and the boat you manage takes them to the next life.
Overwhelm
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch and PC
Duration: Between 6 hours and 8 hours to complete.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Overwhelm is a running jumping game set in a pixilated dark bloody world. The twist, apart from the mild-horror theme, is that it's your enemies that power up rather than you. You explore the oppressive caverns of the hive, guided only by a sparse map.
Heaven’s Vault
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation 4
Genres: Adventure, Narrative and Puzzle
Duration: Between 18 hours and 22 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
In Heaven’s Vault you play an archaeologist translating an ancient alien language whose decrypting weaves through an unfolding drama. While doing real linguistic work you interact with companions and locals. Your choices can open or close vast swathes...
Lost Words: Beyond the Page
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Narrative, Platform and Puzzle
Duration: Between 4 hours and 5 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Lost Words is an adventure game where you run, jump and explore inside a young girl’s diary. You control Izzy as she writes her diary by walking on words, move them around and solve different puzzles. This develops two parallel stories, one about Izzy...
Unfinished Swan
Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita
Genres: Adventure, Narrative and Puzzle
Duration: Between 3 hours and 5 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
The Unfinished Swan invites you to explore a world by splashing paint on it. The tactile experience leads you into a fairy tale about an unfinished painting that leads a child back to his parent.
Journey
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and iOS
Genres: Adventure
Duration: Between 2 and a half hours and 5 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game. You can play with up to 2 players online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
This is an adventure in a desert. Exploring the eerie sandscape, you discover a world abandoned by the race that created it. The sense of space and scale evokes feelings of aloneness and being lost. But then the game pairs you with other players, one at...
Canabalt
Platforms: Android, PC, PlayStation Portable and iOS
Duration: Between 1 minute and 15 minutes to play a round.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Canabalt is a side-on running game where you press jump at the right time to keep a small character from falling off buildings or crashing into things. With minimalist visuals, you play the small suited man fleeing from an unknown threat. As the game...
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and iOS Apple Arcade
Duration: Between 1 hour and 2 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is a rhythm-action game where you control a running, flying, dancing or motorbike-riding character to collect coins and hearts in time with pop music. The neon visuals and emotively voiced story make this an unusual and compelling...
The Last Guardian
Platforms: PlayStation 4
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fighting, Narrative and Simulation
Duration: Between 12 hours and 15 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
The Last Guardian is an adventure, that follows Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus in the Team Ico trilogy. As the other games, it has an artistic look that is unusual for a video game, and a minimalist approach...
Forgotton Anne
Platforms: Android, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and iOS
Genres: Adventure, Narrative and Platform
Duration: Between 8 hours and 9 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Free-to-start.
Forgotton Anne (Forgotten Anne) is a hand-animated adventure that combines cartoon (Ghibli-inspired) storytelling with running and jumping puzzles. You play as Anne, the enforcer who keeps order in the Forgotten Lands, as she sets out to squash a...
Shadow Of The Colossus
Platforms: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fighting, Narrative, Open World and Simulation
Duration: Between 7 hours and 12 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
You play a young man who enters a forbidden land to defeat sixteen massive beings to restore the life of a girl he cares about. It sounds like any other video game, although in fact, Shadow of the Colossus stands apart in many ways.
Mirror’s Edge (Series)
Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One
Genres: Action, Adventure, Open World and Platform
Duration: Between 7 hours and 12 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Mirror's Edge and the follow up, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst are free-running games where you traverse a futuristic city using aspects of urban exploration and parkour movements to complete missions and evade or fight enemies. The focus is on this...
Limbo
Platforms: Nintendo Wii U, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Xbox One
Genres: Narrative, Platform and Puzzle
Duration: Between 4 hours and 8 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Control a small boy as he runs, jumps and climbs through a dark, silhouetted forest that clanks and hums with foreboding. As the age-rating suggests, he is killed in all manner of gruesome ways. But this is not without reason. Rather than violent...
Inside
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and iOS
Genres: Action, Adventure, Narrative and Platform
Duration: Between 8 hours and 13 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Free-to-start. In-game purchases.
Inside is from the same developer as Limbo. As such, you play another boy in a dark dream-light and horrific world. Here though, it's more modern-day and realistic.
Gris is in These Lists
In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Gris in the following lists:
Wake Up Your Emotions
The games selected below create emotionally rich spaces in which to explore scenarios with feelings rather than facts. In some games this is achieved with beautiful or soothing interactive visuals; others create charged relationships and settings that invite players to take a role in processing these emotions.
Educational Games That Are Also Good Games
Some of these games are aimed at younger players to play on their own, but others (as indicated by their PEGI ratings) are better for teenagers or played together in a family. Find some games that pique your interest, read through the details and decide how your child might benefit from playing them.
Great Games Without In-App Purchases
The games in this list are really good for families but have all been selected because they don't include any in-app purchase costs. You either pay a single up-front cost or they enable you to play them for free.
Free With Xbox Game Pass
You cannot play games you install when your Xbox Game Pass expires, although you do keep any games you have purchased at a discount with your membership. You will need to purchase any in-game extra content in addition to the subscription, although some games include this content for free.
- Xbox Game Pass £7.99/month
- Xbox Game Pass Ultimate including Xbox Live Gold for online play £10.99/month
- Xbox Game Pass PC £7.99/month
Be A Good Neighbour
"What if video games have more to offer than just an exciting diversion into a digital battlefield, fantasy war, or alien invasion? While these types of games are certainly the loudest and most financially successful, there are a growing number of games asking important questions about life, the human condition, and even God."
"Our list is not 'Christian' games, but rather a list of games that pose important spiritual questions to those who play them. These are games that provide us with the opportunity to consider what a truly 'spiritual' life looks like by encouraging us to have empathy for the suffering, love for our neighbours and our enemies, and an imagination vivid enough to contemplate a better world."
Journey's understated yet deep mythology, lack of guidance and mysterious ways it brings players together will have players thinking about the course of their own lives. Dropsy is, on the surface, a silly point-and-click adventure game about a creepy but misunderstood clown, dig deeper and you’ll see this a game that challenges players to love everyone, even their enemies. Kentucky Route Zero is at its core, about rediscovery, of adventure-game mechanics and modernist aesthetics, of a more spiritual outlook on the physical world.
Gris is a platformer about the stages of grief that highlights the indelible impact of our most sacred relationships. That Dragon, Cancer is a game where Ryan and Amy Green share their grief and their hope by drawing us not only into their lives but into the common grace of the Christian faith. Myst, one of the best selling titles of all time, is a puzzle game about the beauty and mystery of creation. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a game about the spiritual impact our most precious relationships have on us. Wandersong is a game about transforming the world with music. Heroism isn’t measured in bulk or recognition but in the melodic tones of compassion and kindness. The Last Guardian confronts us with our own self-centeredness and challenges us to give rather than merely take.
Pyre is a game about mercy that deconstructs player’s perceptions of winning and losing, encouraging them to see and meet the needs of those who are oppressed. My Child Lebensborn is a game that challenges players to care for a child born into a fascist regime--this is a game about the power of empathy. Celeste strikes at the centre of what it means to be a person in all of our messy humanity a wonderful reminder that even when we fall, we are lifted up again through redemptive love, forgiveness, and grace—both for ourselves and for one another.
Commit No Violence
Many of them are aimed at children and families, but you'll be surprised how many explore deeper, more mature themes in their narratives, or require just as much skill as a fast-paced first-person shooter. This means there's plenty of offer for parents who might lack the reflexes (or interest) to survive a round of Fortnite.
We've focused on the games you might not expect to be played non-violently here, but you can find the full list at Non-Violent Games Of the Day curated by James Batchelor.
Know Your Body
This is not only an enjoyable way to escape the reality of daily life but a chance to reflect on and understand ourselves, and our bodies, better. Stepping into the shoes of a vulnerable, small or endangered character can help us understand for a short while some of what it is like to be someone else.
Whether this is into the awkward teenage years of Mord and Ben in Wide Ocean Big Jacket, the grandparent-escaping Tiger and Bee in Kissy Kissy, the fractured heartbroken body in Gris or the haphazard movement of Octodad we have a chance to reassess our own physicality and how we respond to and treat other people's physicality.
More specifically, to use body therapy language, games offer us a chance to discover the inviolability of our bodies, personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination. In travel, as Andrew Soloman says, we go somewhere else to see properly the place where we have come from. In video games, we step into other bodies so we can better understand our own and those of the people around us.
Thanks for using our resource. We are editorially independant, written by parents for parents, but welcome sponsorship, partnership and suggestions. It is supported by the Get Smart About PLAY campaign from AskAboutGames.com. For more advice and guidance on video games, also check out my Taming Gaming book.Tweet
Email a correction for Gris.