One of the worst parts of being a parent is seeing your young ones ill or in pain. The uncontrollable emotions that hit can be overwhelming when your child is hurting, and it can be a stressful and uncertain time, especially if they need to go to the hospital. I’ve been there with my own children, with a few hospital visits for one injury or another. Thankfully, for us, these trips were ones that lasted a few hours, and the injuries have now healed. For some though, hospital trips can end up lasting months, and I feel much admiration for the children (and the parents) who have to experience such a thing.
Robyn is one such person, whose hospital stay we experienced in I’ll Be Brave Tomorrow. We experience her time in the hospital through her eyes, from the beginning of her stay through to the end. It’s a personal story for Thomas Hunt, creative director of the developers, Inkforge Studio, as he himself spent some time in the hospital when he was a child. These experiences have bled into the game, with one of those experiences being the hospital he stayed in. Great Ormond Street Hospital is one of the most well-known children’s hospitals in the UK, giving exceptional care to children from cancer to broken bones, and one of the driving forces behind development for Thomas was to be able to give something back to the place that saved his life.
Great Ormond Street hospital is fundraising for a new cancer centre through a Built it, Beat it campaign, in which the hospital charity is aiming to raise £300 million to build a new centre and save more lives from this devastating disease. This game aims to play a part by Inkforge Studio donating 50% of the Steam revenue to this worthy cause. If you would like more information on this campaign, please visit HERE to find out more, including the benefits it would bring to the children and the hospital. It’s also important to know that Inkforge Studios consists of a bunch of students from Falmouth University, which is based in the English county of Cornwall. They have spent months developing the game, all bringing different skills to the development, and they are hoping that once they graduate, they can continue the studio and create more thoughtful and unique games.
Onto the game itself, which is based in the 1990’s and is split between a 3D section of Robyn’s hospital room and a 2D pixel platform game called I’ll Be Brave Tomorrow that Robyn plays to escape her problems and relieve some boredom. The 3D section of the game consists of your hospital room, in which you can’t leave your bed; you can only look around you. You see the room through the eyes of Robyn, and you can interact with objects around you. Some of those objects include a Walkman (yes, kids, this was a way to listen to music privately on cassette tapes), toys, and books that fit the decade perfectly. You can also interact with her plushies, who do speak to you, but I took this as Robyn speaking for them instead of them coming to life. The toy car (shaped like a Deloreon!) opens a mini game where you can race around a track that is built around the room, with obstacles in the way like a wheelchair. Another minigame you can play is with paper aeroplanes. The idea behind this one is to get as many planes in the moving bins as fast as you can. All pretty simple stuff, but most importantly, they were fun and a nice distraction from the main game.
The other main item to interact with in the room is the new console that your parents have bought for you. Shaped like a Super Nintendo, it’s here that the 2D aspect of the game comes to life. Every time Robyn wants to play I’ll Be Brave, Tomorrow, you take the controls of a robin, who is on the search for his lost dad and to try and overcome his fear of flying. Played like an old-style platform game, where you jump from platform to platform or over obstacles or areas of water or poison. You gain a double jump, which will help you reach higher levels, and there are multiple enemies and bosses to contend with. Each one of these levels includes three feathers to find, which are mostly easy to find and obtain. The double jump was a bit finicky for me; I had issues with pulling it off, and it led to me losing health or dying, thanks to the randomness of it working. But there’s nothing here that seasoned players will find tricky, as it’s all pretty simple, but I can see this resonating well with younger children, especially, due to that simplicity.
What these two protagonists share is the struggle through their adversities. With Robyn struggling through her health issues and her prolonged stay in hospital and the robin overcoming his fear of flying and anxiety of his lost dad, they kind of come together in their similarities. It’s a connection that bonds the game together nicely and shows that if we can put our minds to it and persevere, we can overcome most things. Another connection to Robyn and the robin is real-life objects appearing in the video game, though I think you have to make your own mind up on how this happens. Another area of the game I really appreciated were the times when the nurse would take Robyn for a walk in the hospital gardens in her wheelchair. These moments made me appreciate the emotions that people feel of just being outside, especially when you’ve been stuck indoors for so long. These moments also gave you the chance for the game to introduce new elements to the video game as well as honour Great Ormond Street in certain ways. It was a great way to show how time was passing, showing seasons passing while Robyn was in the hospital.
The team has also done a great job in realising all the aspects of the hospital and the video game in its visual design. I liked how the 3D and 2D parts of the game showed different graphical skills, and the lighting of the game was done to a high level. I loved the design of the robin too, with his scarf giving him some personality. I never had an issue with the feel of the game either, with everything just right and not too light or heavy controls, though Robyn’s turning from left to right did feel a little slow, with no option to change the speed of the turn.
There’s so much to unpack from this game. Firstly, the emotional side of the game and the problems Robyn faced will resonate strongly with many, and for others, it shines a light on the mental issues kids and adults come up against when faced with a long hospital stay. When will I go home? When will I see my friends?, and will I ever recover from my illness? are all questions that people in this situation will endeavour to overcome, and it’s these issues that I personally never really thought about beforehand. This game gave me a much bigger understanding of the issues that challenge people in long hospital stays every day, and I am grateful for that. Secondly, I can’t tell you how much I admire the team from Inkforge Studios. So much thought and care have gone into the game, from how they have successfully dressed the word correctly for the decade it’s set in to Thomas using his memories and experiences to aid development. The team went to Great Ormond Street and gave the children the chance to playtest the game, come up with ideas for the mini games, and they included the children’s artwork within the game. And the way they have honoured Great Ormond Street with such care was a wonderful inclusion, showing the love the team has for the excellent staff, who work so hard every day with their compassion and high-quality attentiveness.
I’ll Be Brave, Tomorrow is full of heart, emotion, and care. It will grip you through its heartfelt story and make you feel humbled by the issues both Robyn and the robin face. I would hope that you too can see the effort that has gone into this game, and the result is a well-crafted delight. Inkforge Studios should be proud of their hard work and their efforts, and for two hours of your time, you too can experience Robyn’s and the robins tale and help support a worthy cause all at the same time.
Release Date:
September 25th, 2024
Platforms:
PC
Price:
£9.99
Version Tested:
PC (Via Steam Deck)
Many thanks to the developer for the review copy.
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