The small Sony game worth catching up on
Concrete Genie, five hours to repaint a town
- Critic score
- 75
- Player rating
- 4.3/5
- Main story
- 5 h
- Genre
- Adventure, Action
A bullied teenager, an abandoned harbour town and a magic brush. Concrete Genie, from Sony's small Pixelopus studio, went largely unnoticed in 2019. It is one of the gentlest games in the catalog.
Ash lives in Denska, a former fishing town that pollution has emptied of its people. He spends his time drawing in a sketchbook that the local boys tear from him and scatter. Chasing the pages, he finds a brush that can bring to life whatever he paints on the walls.
The whole game rests on that gesture. You paint by moving the controller, picking motifs from the sketchbook: trees, stars, auroras, campfires. The walls come alive, light returns to the streets, and each district switches back on one string of lights at a time. There is no score and no judgement: you paint what you like, where you like.
Some paintings come alive for real. Genies are small creatures you design yourself, who follow Ash across the walls and help him past obstacles in exchange for drawings. They are the emotional heart of the game, and its best idea.
The last third shifts towards more conventional combat, less successful than the rest. But the game never loses its subject: the bullies have their own story too, and it takes the time to tell it without turning it into a lesson.
About five hours, a bit more to light everything up. Sony closed Pixelopus in 2024: Concrete Genie is one of only two games the studio made, and the best reason to remember it.