The new game from Flavourworks, the studio that brought us FMV-style game Erica, arrives today, and it’s called Hush – Crane and is available free from Google Play and the App Store.
Hush – Crane is pretty short, around 20 minutes or so, and is very similar in many ways to Erica – a movie-like game you can touch to interact with, and a game I really liked. Hush – Crane follows a kind of hitman, or gangster – someone working for an underworld organised gang – who ends up tangled in a love affair with someone who’s not all they seem.
What you see is live-action, as if you’re watching a film. But the game constantly wants your tactile involvement, be it using two thumbs to slide straps off of a lady’s shoulders, or a finger to pull back the trigger of a gun. You can flip tables, smash bottles over people’s heads, and very little of it needs any explanation – it just feels intuitive and right. And since it’s a kind of multi-path experience you can play it a few times to see different outcomes from different decisions.
It’s pretty good. It’s slick like Erica, it’s well shot and well acted, and while a few things don’t quite land, the overall feeling is of something of a high standard. But is that it?
HUSH – Crane TRAILER Watch on YouTube
It’s been three years since Erica came out, and a year since I told Flavourworks’ story and was shown a pretty sizable chunk of the same game. And though I appreciate it took time to adapt the proprietary TouchVideo tech for new platforms, a 20-minute experience in all that time seems slim. In truth, Hush – Crane feels more like a teaser – it even teases more to come. And that’s because, as I come to discover, it is.