Game review: One and One Story

One and One Story is a puzzle platformer game with an interesting premise. Through the course of play, it narrates stages in a romantic relationship via the game's mechanics. One and One Story was designed and programmed by Mattia "MaTX" Traverse, with art by Gabriele Bonis and music by David Carney.

Summary of analysis
Well-implemented tutorial elements, excellent gameplay experience, minimal controls scheme and recessive interface elements, effective graphical implementation, and evocative music.

Tutorial/New player experience
The game featured a very effective new player experience, having tutorial elements seeded throughout the entire course of the game as thoughts of the characters and mechanics being hinted at through the narrative elements.

Gameplay experience
One and One Story manages to accomplish one of the ideal game designs, short and sweet. The game had enough gameplay duration to showcase its creators' talents and was enjoyable from start to finish without contributing that feeling of dragging out gameplay.
The changing mechanics was particularly exciting as it offered new challenges but kept to the overarching theme as well as illustrating an effective lesson on the nature of relationships. They even managed to recycle a number of levels into feeling new due to the changes.
There is also a bonus mode that can be played in a number of ways: coordinated single-player or two-player cooperative, possibly even one character at a time for those that aren't feeling up to the challenge.

Interface & Controls
The game's interface is rather unlikely to see use as there's really only menu, mute, restart, help, and skip buttons. In addition, the interface elements are unobtrusive and tend to fade into the background while focusing on the gameplay. The controls are fully explained in the first level, it's adapting to the mechanics of the levels that presents the game's challenges.

Graphics
Simple, silhouette characters and environment with more colorful objects indicating interactive elements, all on dynamic backgrounds. An effective choice as it lets the player personalize the experience if they're so inclined and saves the designers or writers from having to offer more detailed explanation of the characters.

Music & Sound
A soft and seemingly longing-toned background music flows throughout the duration of play, bolstering the premise and themes effectively. There's also sound effects that work well with the actions and events of gameplay.

Commentary
An overall good game which also manages to teach a lesson about the real world makes One and One Story a game that I applaud. It's far too common to see games created without much thought or consideration to the lessons they potentially teach the player and regrettably common to see games that ignore their affect completely, so when I get to experience games such as this, it is an oasis of excellent game design that makes all the lesser titles worth bearing.