[Preview] Birth is surreal point-and-click puzzler about loneliness

Sometimes the premise of a game is just so bonkers that it simply demands to be played. Birth – an upcoming point-and-click puzzler created by indie developer Madison Karrh – is officially described on Steam as tasking players with “constructing a creature from spare bones & organs found around the city in order to quell your loneliness.” It seemed super intriguing, and so I was excited to have the opportunity to speak with Karrh at Summer Game Fest about her game, a project she’s been developing solo for over two years.

Immediately, I was struck by just aesthetically similar Birth is to the popular Rusty Lake series of point-and-click games – and I mean that as a compliment. Karrh said that those games were a huge inspiration for her, which makes sense as the two share a lot in common at a mechanical level as well. But Birth is a very personal game for Karrh, and she started working on it as an expression of the complicated emotions she experienced after moving to a new city.

“I moved to Chicago maybe 2 or 3 weeks before the pandemic started – by myself – and then was living by myself in a tiny studio,” she said. “This is my reflection on that time period. Not to sound too melodramatic or moody about it!”

Birth is a surreal, opaque experience that explains very little. My demo had me quickly making a character from a few varieties of creepy animal skulls and such before being dropped into a hand-drawn apartment that resembled Madison’s old home. From there, I was free to click around the environment and discover puzzles to solve or click a button to zoom out into the city, from where I could pick a new building to enter and poke around in for additional challenges. Puzzles in Birth are not self-contained, nor are they all necessarily experienced in a specific order, although players do need to complete certain buildings’ puzzles before they can progress deeper into the game.

“I’m very nosy – I would love if I could go in anyone’s apartment and dig around and rifle through their things,” Karrh joked. “This is like, a legal way to express that and explore that idea.”

I clicked into a building that ended up being a coffee shop. Inside was a strange creature who wanted a cup of coffee brewed for her. Easy enough – except my options for what to put in her drink consisted of teeth, moons, spiders, and some other weird symbols. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just made her a random mix of things (except for the spiders, because no thank you), but her silent stare indicated to me that she wasn’t going for it. It wasn’t until I zoomed out of the scene a bit more that I noticed a “menu” of sorts hanging on the walls. So, puzzles in Birth will require players to pay attention to the details of the city’s various environments so they can connect the dots later.

I asked Karrh – is this the type of game where players should keep a notepad and pencil handy?

“I think for sure, having a pad and pen to write down little things… because you are going from scene to scene,” she said, although she was keen to emphasize that puzzles won’t be as complex as something like, say, The Witness. “I try to do very little just pure memorization, because I think that can get kind of tiring… for the most part I like things to be interactive. I think the physics stuff feels very good. I like for most of it to feel like you’re just playing with a toy.”

Other environments players might visit in the game include museums, flower shops, back alleys – pretty much what you would expect to find in a Chicago-inspired city. The puzzles in and around these environments are all about “being curious,” Karrh said.

As players solve puzzles and collect creature parts, those who explore a little deeper might discover hidden tokens, which can later be spent to unlock secrets in the game. Karrh didn’t elaborate as to what to expect with this, but it seems in line with the strange, mysterious, and slightly unsettling tone that Birth has going for it.

Karrh says she hopes that players feel melancholic and hopeful while they play Birth. The game’s central idea – of building a companion from seemingly random objects – is indeed a way to explore the theme of loneliness, but despite the slightly dark undertones of Birth, the game seems like it’s poised to be reflection on some more positive concepts as well.

“I think the act of being hungry for another human is not shameful,” Karrh said. “I think the desire to want to fall in love and want to be with someone is very sweet. And I think for the most part, I just want people to feel content.”

Karrh says that while plans could change, she hopes to bring Birth to Switch by the end of the year. Point-and-click games are a great fit on the platform thanks to the system’s combination of buttons and touch controls, and I can’t wait to see what secrets are tucked away in this expressive, creepy, puzzle-filled city.