After paying more than I expected on games in 2024, I’ve made it my mission this year to spend as little as possible on video games while still…you know…playing video games. I intend to do this partly by focusing on my backlog and partly through giveaways like Epic’s weekly program. But there is another method I plan to use, and that is to take advantage of the large number of free games that are out there. This series is intended to highlight some of the free games that I enjoy and would recommend. Specifically, the focus will be on games that are permanently free (not free-to-play with microtransactions and not temporarily free) and that are available through the likes of Steam, Itch.io, GOG, or Epic Games. Any recommendations of such games are welcome as well!

Game: BirdGut

Platform: Steam

Release Date: May 9, 2019

Developer: Micah Boursier

Genre: Puzzle Platformer

Length: ~ 2 hours

Trailer:

BirdGut is a 2D puzzle platformer that follows an unnamed young bee that, upon hatching, is kicked out of the nest due to its deformed appearance. Looking for some place to go, it ends up swallowed by a large bird and discovers that the bird’s insides form some kind of organic/mechanical factory manned by brainwashed bugs. Having escaped the brainwashing process due to its unusual physiology, it’s up to this intrepid bee to find a way to end the whole operation and make its way to freedom.

I first played BirdGut last year, but it had actually been sitting in my library practically since I first created my Steam account in 2021. I had been intrigued by the strange premise, but was weirdly leery of the fact that it didn’t cost anything; I had convinced myself that a game being perpetually given away for free had to be either unfinished or of low quality. It took quite a while for me to get past that mentality and give BirdGut a shot, and even then I was still surprised at how polished the game ended up feeling.

Right away one of the things the game has going for it is its art. Everything was hand-drawn by Boursier, something that seems to be a bit of a calling card for him. (The art for his most recent game, The Multi-Medium, was hand-made by Boursier in a variety of different artistic mediums and it sounds like the backgrounds for his upcoming point-and-click adventure Poco were all hand-painted.) The lines aren’t perfectly smooth and straight; if you look closely, you can see that everything’s a little squiggly. Rather than being a detriment, this actually proves to be very charming and, when combined with the relatively simple (and yet, paradoxically, detailed) art style, helps to create a lovely sense of whimsy. Everything is also in shades of black, gray, and white outside of some splashes of red, something that gives the game a clean and distinctive look. Honestly, I cannot fathom how much time had to have gone into making the art alone only for the game to be given away for free. It feels almost criminal.

From a gameplay perspective, this plays as a pretty standard puzzle platformer. You can walk, jump, and interact with or push objects, and that’s largely it from a control standpoint. There are a large number of puzzles that have to be solved along the way, ranging from moving a box to the right location to adjusting mirrors to direct a laser along the correct path. None of these necessarily break new ground, but they are nonetheless well-designed. Most of the challenge comes from the platforming itself. Things start easy, but the difficulty ramps up pretty strongly as more and more obstacles that can kill you are introduced. While I would consider the majority of the platforming challenges fair, there are a couple of sections near the end that I found teetered over the edge into deeply frustrating (most notably a painful minecart section). This isn’t due to how the bee controls, as it controls pretty smoothly, but more due to inconsistent checkpoint placement in the later areas that can result in you being repeatedly set back several minutes for simple mistakes.

The story is pretty threadbare, outside of the beginning and a few short cutscenes in the second half of the game, but that can be expected for a game that is only one to two hours long. There are no significant emotional stakes either. And that’s perfectly fine – the strange and wacky setting makes up for it, and there is enough humor in the puzzle solving and the little bits of dialogue present to keep things fun. The pacing also feels just right. Nothing’s too dragged out or too rushed – the game is exactly as long as it needs to be, and I appreciate that. The music is mainly incidental and not particularly memorable, but I do like the final boss theme, which goes surprisingly hard:

It certainly has its flaws, but BirdGut is quite a polished, whimsical platformer that was clearly a labor of love by its creator and is, in my opinion, worth a playthrough.

(Also, if you play BirdGut and enjoy it and are willing to spend $7, I heartily recommend The Multi-Medium. I had a great time with it.)

There won’t be a regular schedule by which I will release these reviews, in part because it will depend on when I’ve found another game to recommend, but I imagine it will be close to monthly. The second instalment will likely be sooner than that, though, as there is another game I played last year that I would like to cover – a bite-sized and surprisingly moving RPG called Grimm’s Hollow.

And, again, while I do have a number of possibilities lined up I always welcome recommendations as well!

Images courtesy of the game’s Steam page