Gibbon: Beyond the Trees — An Impactful Adventure (Apple Arcade)
Review & development deep dive
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Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is a moving, hand-drawn adventure game about gibbons in the rainforest and the impact that humanity is having on them. It features a fluid and satisfying movement system with physics-based animation, hand-drawn environments and a killer soundtrack.
Currently it’s released exclusively on Apple Arcade, but will be releasing this year on PC (Steam) and Nintendo Switch. Gibbon: Beyond the Trees is much more than just a game with an environmental message, here’s why:
Established in 2009, Austria based Broken Rules established themselves as creators of innovative yet accessible video games that create meaningful and memorable experiences. With a focus on originality, simplicity and refined game mechanics, they established themselves with memorable and acclaimed games such as adventure game Old Man’s Journey and musical puzzler ELOH.
Created as both a game development studio and a creative collective, the team at Broken Rules sought a diverse set of inputs to help bring the world of Gibbon: Beyond the Trees to life. These inputs included hand-drawn environments and creatures by Catherine Unger and some clever procedural animation techniques from David Rosen at Wolfire Games.
Bringing Gibbons to Life
David Rosen originally responded to an ad from Broken Rules looking for procedural animation work, and soon he developed a prototype which drew upon his experience in creating physics based animation. After receiving a concept animation, he created a demo in which players could control a virtual gibbon using simple inputs.
